ARIANNA: Oh, my God. Absolutely.

LESLEY: Now is that terrifying?

ARIANNA: Yes. Thoroughly. And I wonder where we’d be … did you ever do that?

LESLEY: I did. Oooohhh, yeah.

ARIANNA: You did?

LESLEY: Yes. And the answer I got back wasn’t a good one.

ARIANNA: Well, you see how fearless you are.

LESLEY: I wanted to ask you, I want to change the subject – I want to ask you about how you work, because it appears that you put in an enormous number of hours, either working on the Huffington Post, or on television promoting the Huffington Post, being a commentator. What is your typical day like? What do you do? How hands-on are you about the website?

ARIANNA: Completely hands-on. We have great editors and a wonderful managing editor, Jai Singh, and a wonderful editor, Roy Sekoff, so we have a fantastic team.

LESLEY: Do you review the content yourself?

ARIANNA: I’m involved in every aspect of the site. Obviously I don’t pick every story that goes up. That’s no longer possible. But I’m involved with all the big editorial decisions of the site. I’m constantly roaming the site to see what we want to change, what we want to do different. I’m constantly recruiting bloggers, helping launch new verticals. We’re about to launch New York in June. Dan Collins is the editor of that new local. We’re launching new verticals all the time. The next one is technology. We’ve launched our Investigative Fund, which I’m really excited about. I’ve been very involved in staffing that up and we hired last week Larry Roberts, who was the investigative editor of The Washington Post, and we’re really excited about that. So a lot of my time is spent on the expansion of the Huffington Post, you know, as well as spending time on the running of the site as it is now.

LESLEY: But, you know, I was saying every time I look up at the television screen, there’s Obama – but also you. You’re with Keith, you’re with Wolf, you’re with Mika. You just said CNN. How do you have time? You have to run over to their studios, you always look great. How do you fit it all in?

ARIANNA: I find that I work wherever I am. Like when I’m walking, I’m dictating, maybe a blog. While I’m in the car, I’m working. I was joking about that because, like, I get up from my desk and I have my phone plugged in my ear, and I’m talking to somebody about something. It’s a constant process. You know, if I’m in the studio being made up for a show, I’m on the phone dealing with something. So I think part of it is this endless multitasking.

LESLEY: Great management.

ARIANNA: But I also think there is a price to pay in multitasking. I remember my mother, who was the most important person in my life and died in 2000, and lived with me all her life. The last time she was angry with me was when she saw me opening my mail and talking to my daughters at the same time. And she looked at me and in her very heavy accent, which is much, much heavier than mine, she said to me, "I abhor multitasking."

LESLEY: Well, when you’re talking to your daughters, she was right.

ARIANNA: Absolutely. And in fact, you know, that’s been … you asked me about change, that’s been a big change. Like we have a lot of ground rules now. We all have Blackberries, both the girls and I, and it’s no BlackBerries at dinner, no BlackBerry checking while we are talking.