HuffPost cuts ties with BP consultant Rosen

The liberal news site Huffington Post has cut ties with its former Washington Editor at Large, Hilary Rosen, because of Rosen's new role as a consultant for the embattled oil company British Petroleum.

Rosen, a Washington figure and former chief music industry lobbyist, now heads the Washington office of the Brunswick Group, which is part of a phalanx of lobbying and communications firms retained by BP to battle Congressional and Administrative retribution and new regulation for its massive Gulf oil spill.

"Hilary is no longer our Washington Editor at Large, a mutual decision we recently reached given her involvement with BP," wrote Arianna Huffington in an email today, responding to a query from POLITICO. "However, we still have a great personal relationship. And, of course, Hilary’s work with BP has had zero effect on our coverage of the company or the disaster in the gulf. Comprehensive and hard-hitting, our coverage speaks for itself."

Rosen's shift is recent enough that her Huffington Post and Brunswick biographies still describes her as Washington Editor-at-Large. She has not written for the site, however, since January.

Huffington Post has covered the spill aggressively and with a sharply anti-BP tone. Headlines this afernoon include, "Size Of The Spill STILL Being Low-Balled" and "'BP Mole Shares The Secrets Of BP's Cleanup Ops."