Arianna Huffington announces launch of World Post (T. Blair and B. Gates among new site's contr.)

The 1% are about to get their own publication. The digital media titan Arianna Huffington and the billionaire investor Nicolas Berggruen on Wednesday announced the launch of World Post, a comment and news website that looks set to become a platform for some of the most powerful people on the planet.

Inevitably, the World Post will be launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this month. Many of its contributors including former British prime minister Tony Blair, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Google’s Eric Schmidt are regulars at the annual jamboree for the world’s most connected people. Many are also advisers to the Berggruen Institute, the billionaire investor’s nonpartisan policy think tank.

Berggruen, known as the “homeless billionaire” because he prefers living in hotels to owning houses, said the 50/50 venture with Huffington Post owner AOL would not just be a platform for the world’s elite. “You have to start somewhere,” he said. “A lot of these people are knowledgable. On the other hand you will see a lot of unknown voices, young voices and from places that are not that obvious.”

Huffington said: “You can have all those heads of state and major business people, etcetera etcetera, writing right next to an unemployed man from Spain, a student from Brazil. The great heart of HuffPo is no hierarchy.”

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/08/world-post-news-website-launches-huffington