Huffington Post founder Ariana Huffington spoke last night at the Mondavi Center at UC Davis, as part of its Distinguished Speakers Series.  Her lecture was a free-flowing, spontaneous take on a variety of topics that fit loosely under the evening’s theme, “The brave new world of the new media: how technology is changing the way we think, learn, play, work, and vote.”

As founder and editor of one of the most highly trafficked news aggregating/blog sites on the internet, Huffington has developed strong opinions about the direction journalism will take in the future.  Citing ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, she told the audience that because things are always in a state of flux, “you can’t step into the same river twice,” meaning that journalists would be wrong to try to recreate news on the web as a slightly tweaked version of news on paper.

Instead, she lobbied for a hybrid journalism emphasizing the “fairness, accuracy and fact-checking” of print and the “transparency, immediacy and openness” of the web.  She called this “the age of Citizen Journalists” (Sacramento Press, anyone?) who can report news more accurately, immediately and locally than traditional news organizations, citing the fact that CNN operations were shut down in Iran’s recent uprisings, while independent citizens freely delivered news from that region through Twitter and Facebook posts too diffused for the government to control.

Huffington argued that because traditional news media enjoy far greater access to newsmakers, traditional reporters often fail to accomplish accurate reporting.  She claimed that traditional organizations so value their access that they fear to put it at risk by reporting information that might anger newsmakers.  As an example, she referred to Bob Woodward, claiming that his unfettered access to the Bush White House lead him to write two books that did not deal meaningfully with the biggest issues of that presidency.

Huffington remained on stage late, answering so many questions from the receptive audience that she apparently had to remove her shoes to keep standing.