Tag Archives: Tina Brown

New York Observer: Daily Beast and Newsweek to merge

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Last night the New York Observer’s Media Mob broke the news that Newsweek and the Daily Beast will merge.

According to the report, the editorial staffs of the two titles will combine in a 50-50 merger of the two companies.

Full story on the New York Observer at this link…

The Daily Beast’s editor-in-chief Tina Brown confirmed the deal in a statement on the site late last night:

It’s a wonderful new opportunity for all the brilliant editors and writers at the Daily Beast who have worked so hard to create the site’s success. Working at the warp-speed of a 24/7 news operation, we now add the versatility of being able to develop ideas and investigations that require a different narrative pace suited to the medium of print. And for Newsweek, the Daily Beast is a thriving frontline of breaking news and commentary that will raise the profile of the magazine’s bylines and quicken the pace of a great magazine’s revival.

FT.com: The Daily Beast one year on

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The Financial Times carries an interview with Tina Brown a year after the former Vanity Fair editor launched website The Daily Beast.

Brown discusses site stats, the challenges of online journalism, expansion plans and encouraging her writers to go into print – in books rather than magazines.

Full story at this link…

BusinessInsider: Advertising will arrive at the Daily Beast ‘by late spring,’ says Brown

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“Speaking at an event at the Columbia Journalism School on Thursday, the Daily Beast’s  Tina Brown said she thought advertising would debut on the site ‘by late spring,”the BusinessInsider blog reports.

Full story at this link…

The beast is unleashed: looking at Tina Brown’s new site

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As reported all over the shop, yesterday saw the launch of the online news aggregator site, The Daily Beast, captained by former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair and The NewYorker, Tina Brown, and backed by Barry Diller, of IAC/InterActiveCorp.

PaidContent had managed a sneak preview, but the likes of Roy Greenslade, and Journalism.co.uk had to wait till its official grand unveiling yesterday afternoon.

Named after the fictional tabloid in Evelyn Waugh’s 1938 novel, Scoop, Tina Brown describes The Daily Beast, on her site, as: “the omnivorous friend who hears about the best stuff and forwards it to you with a twist.”

Her motley crew boasts the satirist Chris Buckley, former McCain adviser Mark McKinnon, Project Runway’s Laura Bennett and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg.

The site’s bold red and black design has a large list of contributors and features a collection of news, opinion, blogs, links and video.

Over at Cyber Journalist Net they reckon it’s ‘about 30 percent original content’ and Gawker is having fun speculating about Brown’s spending habits.

Opinion in the US seems to be split on the site: Deadline Hollywood’s Nikki Finke thinks it ‘sucks’, but as the New York Observer points out she said that about Huffington as well.

Steve Johnson at the Chicago Tribune reckons there’s irony in the choice of title but doesn’t think that necessarily matters.

With absolutely no advertising on the site, it will be interesting to see whether The Daily Beast can survive in the online jungle. It seems to have had a lion’s share of initial hype at least.