Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, has fought back over comments made by Bill Keller, editor of the New York Times, in which he labelled her the "queen of aggregation."

In a column for the New York Times magazine, Keller criticised the "the American Idol-ization of news" and news outlets that "give pride of place not to stories they think important but to stories that are 'trending' on Twitter."

Keller specifically referred to the Huffington Post website as an example, saying: "if you take celebrity gossip, adorable kitten videos, posts from unpaid bloggers and news reports from other publications, array them on your website and add a left-wing soundtrack, millions of people will come."

He also criticised AOL's purchase of the Huffington Post and the "piracy" of repackaging news material.

In a response on her website, Huffington referred to Keller's comments as "an exceptionally misinformed attack," and said: "HuffPost had 148 full-time editors, writers, and reporters engaged in the serious, old-fashioned work of traditional journalism."

Huffington also rebutted claims by Keller that she had repeated a line used by him at a panel debate as her own, labelling the column as "lame as it is laughable."