They have blogs like http://www.autoblog.com, http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/ , http://www.luxist.com/ I'm curious how they setup RSS, thumbnails etc. What kind of plugins are they using?
They probably use a blogging platform. For a bunch of free ones check out www.opensourcecms.com. Most platforms you can place images into your posts with. It's a fairly simple process to be honest.