Katherine Mangu-Ward posits:
Notice that the moment the various sources synced up was the 2008 election. One possible interpretation: When the country suddenly developed a voracious appetite for news, they gave all three sources an equal chance. But it was HuffPo, not WaPo, that gave people what they were looking for—super-speedy coverage of the political story-of-the-second, followed by a bikini babe chaser.
What is also clear is that HuffPo, while not regaining the mountain tops of the election months is still way ahead of where it was two years ago. The Washington Post, in contrast, has lost almost half its traffic in the same period. Call it Froomkin's revenge. The Dish has triple the readership it had three years ago, and, on current trends, this year's traffic will likely be roughly the same as the boom year of 2008.
The Dish 