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Is there anything more American than one media giant acquiring another media giant on Super Bowl Sunday? In true prime time fashion, America Online (AOL) closed a deal in which the Internet service and media company paid a reported $315-million for the Huffington Post. Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the progressive news website, was named president and editor-in-chief of AOL’s “The Huffington Post Media Group.” At stake for Huffington are the progressive credentials she and co-founder Kenny Lerer have cultivated since the website’s inception in 2005, growing the monthly visitors count to 25 million in just five years. She has assured that “We’re still traveling toward the same destination, with the same people at the wheel, and with the same goals, but we’re now going to get there much, much faster.” But the blogosphere is rife with questions about whether the Huffington Post will actually start paying its writers under AOL ownership, given the impact the news website has had on undercutting traditional news outlets. Our guest today is John Nichols, political writer for The Nation magazine and author of such books as The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again. In his recent article in The Nation, Nichols speculates, “If, with AOL’s resources, Huffington is able to hire more, if she and her team are able to produce more serious content and if they can identify …”ways to save investigative journalism,” it is possible to imagine that the AOL–Huffington Post deal could mark a turning point in the debate about the future of journalism. That’s a lot of ‘ifs…'”

GUEST: John Nichols, political writer for The Nation Magazine, contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin, co-founder of Free Press, co-author with Bob McChesney of The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again