Politico's Most Respected Writer Leaves for Wacky Video Site
Political blogger Ben Smith's career is a series of progressively wackier job moves. He was at the NY Daily News, covering state politics, and was more respected than the average tabloid writer. He moved to THE POLITICO, where he's been blogging about politics and media for the past five years, managing to stay more respected (by us!) than his micro-horse-race-obsessed paper as a whole. Now, he's off to an even weirder destination!
Ben Smith is going to meme-collating site BuzzFeed, what?
As editor in chief, Mr. Smith will hire more than a dozen reporters right away, said Jonah Peretti, who founded BuzzFeed with Kenneth Lerer, "and then we will keep growing from there." The reporters will be scoop generators, Mr. Peretti said. "By breaking scoops and drawing attention," he added, they will help increase traffic and, by extension, advertising sales.
BuzzFeed, your new source for something more than wacky TV news blooper videos! In fact, BuzzFeed recently hired two of our own employees, so we are sure they will have success in whatever bizarre new endeavor they're undertaking here. The wacky TV news blooper video beat is all ours, suckas!
Ben, how much money did they throw at you? A lot, I bet. Please share.
