Huffington post translates into print after three-month delay.

WHEN millionaire former California gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington launched her celebrity-studded Web log in May, there was a lot of talk about how the Huffington Post would bridge the gap between new and old media. Commentaries penned by Huffington Post contributors would begin appearing in newspapers nationwide, referring people back to the blog to read and post feedback.

But it turns out the gap between old and new media was wider than anticipated.

After about three months of delays, content from the Huffington Post finally began appearing ill newspapers last week under a syndication agreement between the Huffington Post and Tribune Media Services that had been originally set to launch in June. The Huffington Post's leap to print was so late in coming that one media-related blog, MediaBistro.com. showed a picture of the Loch Ness Monster when it mentioned Huffing ton's biog.

Adapting the more free-form nature of a blog to the more traditional approach of newspapers was a more formidable task than anticipated, said Mary Elson, managing editor of Tribune Media Services, which is owned by Chicago based Tribune Co. For one thing, the sheer quantity of copy from Huffington's blog may have overwhelmed some editors, so it was cut back from a daily offering to twice a week, Elson said.

"Blogs are organic and changing with the news, and we were sending out a day package seven days a week (during the trial phase), and with the way newspaper editors work, it was probably too much," Elson said.

By many measures, however, Huffington's L.A.-based blog has been a success. It drew nearly 800,000 visitors in July, who collectively made 6.6 million page views, according to Nielsen NetRatings. That makes the Huffington Post one of the most viewed blogs on the Internet, although far behind mainstream news sites such as cnn.com and latimes.com.

After launching without advertising, the Huffington Post now carries ads from major companies such as TiVo Inc. and Washington Mutual Inc.

Sarah Bernard, general manager of the Huffington Post, said the site needs exposure in mainstream newspapers to gain a mass audience. She denied that there was any incompatibility between the blog and newspapers, attributing the delays to vacations, personnel changes and the fact that blog content has never before been syndicated to newspapers.

"I don't think we've come across anything unusual from the perspective of a blogger world vs. a newspaper world," she said. "It's been pretty seamless."

Staff reporter James Nash can be reached at [phone], ext. 230, or by e-mail at [e-mail].