Huffington touts media convergence in Toronto

Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the popular Huffington Post news website and blog, says despite dwindling circulation numbers, she doesn't think the newspaper is dead.

"As long as there are people who grow up with newspapers as I did, there are always going to be newspapers," Huffington, 60, said Monday during a stop inToronto.

"I still subscribe to seven newspapers and I love reading my news in print as well, of course, as constantly being online. So I think this can be the golden age of journalism."

The Huffington Post publisher and editor-in-chief was in town to speak at an event organized by the Women's Executive Network honouring the country's highest achieving female leaders. Huffington planned to focus on the theme of "fearless leadership" in her keynote address.

"How can women overcome the fears that have often stopped us from following our dreams the fear of failure, the fear of not being approved of," she said. "Of course men have these fears too, but in women they seem to be more intensified."

Huffington admits that she, too, has felt fear in her career, especially when she co-founded Huffington Post with media executive Ken Lerer in 2005.

The Athens-born media mogul, who now lives in Los Angeles, says she heard from a lot of "naysayers" about the online initiative, even among her friends.

"It was such a risk and I had my career I was doing books and articles and why did I need to go on an internet entrepreneurial project at my advanced age?" she recalled people asking.

"So obviously there was a fear of failure in the launching of the project, but I've learned through the years and through failing along the way that there is nothing really terribly wrong with failing that failure is just part of success."

Of course, no one can doubt Huffington's success today.

'Every one of [Canada's] major newspapers has a very active online presence and is doing all the things that we, the new media kids, are doing. And we, the new media kids ... are hiring more and more reporters and professional editors' Arianna Huffington

Last year she ranked 28th on the Forbes list of the most powerful women in the world, and was named one of the 50 people who shaped the decade by the Financial Times. In 2006, she made the Time magazine list of the world's 100 most influential people. And she recently published her 13th book, Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream.

Meanwhile, HuffPo, as it's sometimes called, gets a whopping 24 unique million visitors per month.

Canada, she says, seems to be on par with the U.S. in terms of how engaged its journalists are in new media ventures.

"Right now in Canada you have both legacy media and new media converging, which is really what's happening in the United States too," she said. "You don't have like, old media and new media.

"Every one of your major newspapers has a very active online presence and is doing all the things that we, the new media kids, are doing. And we, the new media kids, certainly at the Huffington Post, are hiring more and more reporters and professional editors.

"So I see the future, whether it's in Canada or the United States, to be a hybrid future a hybrid future where you have the best of the old converging with the best of the new and there are those who thrive in the new environment."