The Daily Beast

For the fictional newspaper, see Scoop (novel).
Not to be confused with The Beast (newspaper).
The Daily Beast
Web address thedailybeast.com
Available in English
Owner The Newsweek Daily Beast Company
Created by Tina Brown
Editor John Avlon
Launched 6 October 2008
Current status active

The Daily Beast Beast is an award-winning American news reporting and opinion website focusing on politics and pop-culture. In a 2015 interview, Editor-in-Chief John Avlon described The Beast’s editorial approach, “We seek out scoops, scandals and stories about secret worlds; we love confronting bullies, bigots and hypocrites.[1]

History

The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC. Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine was the founding editor. Brown stepped down as editor in September 2013.[2] John Avlon, an American journalist and political commentator as well as a CNN contributor, is the site's Editor-in-Chief.[3] Mike Dyer is Chief Strategy and Product Officer and Sarah Chubb serves as Senior Advisor.[4]

The name of the site was taken from a fictional newspaper in Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop.[5]

On 12 November 2010, The Daily Beast and Newsweek announced a merger deal, creating a combined company, The Newsweek Daily Beast Company. On 3 August 2013 IAC, owner of The Daily Beast, sold Newsweek to IBT Media, owner of the International Business Times.[6] In September of 2014, one year after Tina Brown's departure was announced, The Daily Beast reached a new record of 21 million unique visitors - a 60% year-over-year increase in readers, accompanied by a 300% increase in the overall size of its social media community.[7] In 2015, Ken Doctor, a news analyst for NeimanLab, reported on Capital New York that The Daily Beast is, “one of the fastest-growing news and information sites year-over-year in the “General News” category.[4][8] ”

Format

A feature of The Daily Beast is the "Cheat Sheet", billed as "must reads from all over". Published throughout the day, the "Cheat Sheet" offers a selection of articles from online news outlets on popular stories. The "Cheat Sheet" includes brief summaries of the article, and a link to read the full text of the article on the website of its provider.

Since the launch, the site has introduced additional sections, including a video "Cheat Sheet" and "Book Beast".[9] The site frequently creates encyclopedic landing pages on topical subjects such as President Obama's inauguration, the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, Michael Jackson, the Iran uprising, and the US Open.[10] In 2014, The Daily Beast became majority mobile and released an iOS app, which NeimanLab described as “the dawn of the quantified news reader.[11]”

Contributors to the publication include notable writers and political activists such as Ana Marie Cox, PJ O’Rourke, Mike Barnicle, Noah Shachtman, Michael Tomasky, David Frum, Stuart Stevens, Meghan McCain, Peter Beinart, Jon Favreau, Kirsten Powers, Daniel Gross, Michael Moynihan, Jamelle Bouie, Michael Daly, Lloyd Grove, Daniel Klaidman, Jackie Kucinich, Chris Dickey, Leslie H. Gelb, Dean Obeidallah, Matt Lewis, Ron Christie, Josh Rogin, Eli Lake, Christopher Buckley, Bernard Henri Levy, Eleanor Clift, Patricia Murphy, Michelle Goldberg, Martin Amis, John Avlon, Joshua Dubois, and others, including Brown herself.

Popularity

In early June 2014, Capital New York re-published a memo by outgoing CEO Rhona Murphy, stating that The Daily Beast's average unique monthly visitors increased from an average of 13.5 million in 2013 to more than 17 million in 2014.[12]

Awards

The Daily Beast won a Webby Award for "Best News Site" in 2012 and 2013.[13]

Beast Books

In September 2009, The Daily Beast launched a publishing initiative entitled "Beast Books" that will produce books by Beast writers on an accelerated publishing schedule.[14] In March 2013, “Beast Books,” now operating under the name “Book Beast,” won a National Magazine Award for Website Department, which "Honors a department, channel or microsite."

Merger with Newsweek

Tina Brown, The Daily Beast's editor, confirmed in November 2010 that the website would merge with Newsweek, following extensive negotiations between the publications' proprietors.[15][16] The resulting company was named The Newsweek Daily Beast Company.

Controversies

In February 2010, Jack Shafer of Slate.com claimed that the chief investigative reporter for The Daily Beast, Gerald Posner, had lifted five sentences from a Miami Herald article and claimed that he had written them himself and was able to publish them in The Daily Beast under his own name. Shafer also discovered that Posner had written plagiarized content from a Miami Herald blog, a Miami Herald editorial, Texas Lawyer magazine and a health care journalism blog. An immediate internal investigation by The Daily Beast led to Posner's departure.[17]

The Daily Beast has released several university rankings. In 2010 it released a ranking of the "50 Druggiest Colleges" citing data from Niche, formerly known as College Prowler. This ranking has been criticized by spokespeople from the University of New Hampshire and Williams College.[18] The site has continued to publish unconventional rankings such as 25 Sexiest Colleges of 2014.

References

  1. ↑ The 60-second interview: John Avlon, editor in chief, The Daily Beast February 12, 2015, Capital New York
  2. ↑ Tina Brown steps down after tumultuous tenure at Daily Beast 11 Sept. 2013, The Guardian.
  3. ↑ Daily Beast promotes Avlon to editor-in-chief January 17, 2014, New York Post
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 What are they thinking? The Daily Beast’s Mike Dyer, against wishful thinking February 10, 2015 Capital New York
  5. ↑ Tina Brown Resurrects Waugh’s ‘Daily Beast’ August 7, 2008 New York Magazine
  6. ↑ "New York, "IAC Found Someone to Buy Zombie Newsweek," 3 August 2013.". Daily Intelligencer.
  7. ↑ "Hadas Gold, "One year after Tina Brown exit, Daily Beast traffic surges," 1 October 2014.". Politico.
  8. ↑ NeimanLab Author Profile Ken Doctor NeimanLab
  9. ↑ "Tina Brown Talks About the Book Beast". Mediabistro.com. 6 February 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
  10. ↑ "U.S. Open". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 4 March 2010.
  11. ↑ The Newsonomics of the Newly Quantified, Gamified News Reader NeimanLab December 4, 2014
  12. ↑ Pompeo, Joe (4 June 2014). "Leadership changes at The Daily Beast". Capital. Retrieved 4 June 2014.
  13. ↑ McAthy, Rachel (30 April 2013). "HuffPost Live and NY Times among Webby Award winners". Journalism.co.uk. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  14. ↑ O'Shea, Chris (31 August 2013). "Newsweek/The Daily Beast Sets Traffic Record". Media Bistro. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  15. ↑ Brown, Tina (11 November 2010). "Daily Beast, Newsweek to Wed!". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 12 November 2010.
  16. ↑ "The Daily Beast and Newsweek confirm merger". The Spy Report (Media Spy). 12 November 2010. Retrieved 12 November 2010.
  17. ↑ "Author Gerald Posner quits Daily Beast amid plagiarism allegations". Miami Herald. 11 February 2010
  18. ↑ Kantor, Ira; Sherman, Natalie (14 December 2010). "Local colleges rank high on dope list". Boston Herald.

External links