[UPDATE: The man in the photo has been identified as a 27-year-0ld named Jeff Bauman, Jr., and is in stable condition, according to a Facebook post written by his father. The New York Times published this account, along with the photo, on Tuesday evening.]
Among the many photos that captured both the senselessness and the humanity Read More
Two days after Hurricane Sandy last week, The Observer met up with Liena Zagare, the publisher of Brooklyn local news network Corner News Media, at a local coffee shop in Ditmas Park, and found her standing by the sugar and creamers, talking to a fellow customer and asking her to send tips along. That’s just how it Read More
A media odd couple was formed on Monday, when BuzzFeed and The New York Times announced that they will join forces to cover the Democratic and Republican national conventions in live-streaming video “TimesCasts” on NYTimes.com.
The collaboration, which serves to lend the Times’ growing video department a jolt of buzzy, young talent while cementing BuzzFeed’s nascent journalistic credentials, was born from the Twitter-based mutual admiration of New York Times assistant managing editor Jim Roberts and BuzzFeed editor-in-chief, Ben Smith. The two met IRL when they sat on a panel together during Social Media Week in February. Read More
In his long overdue Atlantic media diet, BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti called out the previous contributors to the column, the ones who claim to read The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times in print, every day, and say they are so embarrassed by how the Economists they never got around to reading pile up around the apartment.
He wrote:
“The main way I discover information is my Twitter feed and my Facebook news feed. One of the interesting things about this Media Diet column is if people were honest, I think they would give more credit to Facebook and Twitter, which can mean totally different things depending on who you are. But social is the new starting point.” Read More
Time to fire up the old “Has Buzzfeed Hired Anyone New Today?” Tumblr. The Meme-Manufacturing Warhol Factory for Fame-Seeking Cats and plucky news upstart helmed by erstwhile Politco columnist Ben Smith is at it again. This time, they went hunting in the upper-echelons of New York Magazine’s masthead. Read More
BuzzFeed launched a new tech blog today, FWD. Not “forward” as in, like, progress, but “forward” as in sharing. Spreading content on the social web. FWD editor Matt Buchanan lays it out in his introduction post:
“FWD is a way to share things. To pass them on. To nudge the conversation about technology in a different direction–maybe not the next level, exactly, but at least a different one. It’s fundamentally social, which is simply the way more and more of the web works now. Social is the web’s new reality.” Read More
Michael Hastings will cover President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign for post-meme social news site BuzzFeed, the company announced today.
“Social publishing is the future of journalism, or at least huge part of its future. By joining BuzzFeed, I’ll be at the front and center of that world,” Mr. Hastings said in the announcement. “It will give me the chance to be part of a media organization that’s breaking new journalistic ground, finding innovative and fresh ways to report the story.” Read More
In their latest effort to make the rest of the world feel jealous for not working for Jonah Peretti, Buzzfeed introduced a new friend to the office this morning: Mystic the miniature horse. Read More
RollingStone.com senior editor Doree Shafrir has been named executive editor of BuzzFeed, the company announced today. She will oversee the social news site’s expanding pop culture coverage, joining CEO Jonah Peretti, managing editor Scott Lamb and editor in chief Ben Smith (whose politics team is currently enjoying a glittery debut on the GOP campaign trail) at the top of the masthead. Read More
So Kim Jong Il, Christopher Hitchens and former Czech president Václav Havel walk up to Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates of Heaven …
If you’ve been lost in the static of radio silence this past week, you must be thinking, “What a witty opener for that Upper West Side Christmas party!” Unfortunately, the humor is coarsened by the fact that the North Korean supreme leader, outspoken British-turned-American intellectual and Eastern European politician moonlighting as everything under the literary sun all passed away this weekend. We can’t help but imagine Mr. Hitchens being amused by the inevitable comparisons that one could draw between him and the company he’ll be keeping in the newsworthy obits this week: The pages of which will be filled with terms like “revolutionary,” “tyrannical,” “egomaniacal” and “possibly insane.” (And that’s just for Mr. Hitchens!) It’s dark humor, of course, but did the Vanity Fair contributing editor know any other kind? Read More
