BuzzFeed has poached Jordan Zakarin from The Hollywood Reporter, where he covered film, television, and — oddly enough — BuzzFeed.

As the newest member of the site’s growing entertainment vertical, the New Jersey native will cover the film, TV and pop culture industry from BuzzFeed’s New York headquarters.

“I’m crazy excited to join the young, ambitious, wildly talented and fun team at BuzzFeed,” Zakarin said in a statement to FishbowlNY. “I plan on learning a lot and contributing all that I can. All of my friends share BuzzFeed posts on Facebook, so I’m hoping they might finally decide to share one of my stories, too.”

At THR, he delved deep inside the world of Joss Whedon fans and asking Chippendales strippers to review “Magic Mike“ to profiling Jessica Chastain.

Breaking: Media reporters might finally have taken their heads out of the sand — at least for just this week! — and realized that about 96 percent of people don’t care about media. Not anymore, that is.

BuzzFeed set off the talk with a smart piece on why/how the New York Times layoffs were covered. Doree Shafrir wrote that no one knew the details behind the buyouts because the media beat has changed:

The pressure to be first has only gotten more intense, and often that breaking of news, particularly in media, is taking place on Twitter. And for a young reporter, what used to be the rewards of the media beat — getting to know everyone in media very quickly, often because they’re calling you up to yell at you, and then gaining their respect, and then eventually moving on — seem less vital in the age of the at-reply.

That is true, but Shafrir nailed it at the end when she explained that there is little interest in media gossip these days because the Times buyouts were “just another depressing sign of an industry in the throes of wrenching contraction.” The only thing we’d add? Media reporting was never that interesting to most people.

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BuzzFeed has hired Steve Kandell as its long form editor. At the site, Kandell will be responsible for jump starting its foray into long form pieces. Kandell was previously the editor-in-chief of Spin. He also serves as a contributing editor for Details.

“The social web has created an opportunity for an exciting revival of longform and Steve is perfectly positioned to pioneer the social future of narrative journalism at BuzzFeed,” said Doree Shafrir, BuzzFeed’s executive editor, in a statement. “Steve’s deep experience in magazine writing and editing really make him the ideal candidate to craft long form narratives that inspire conversation and sharing.”

Rolling Stone has named Monica Herrera its new Senior Editor for RollingStone.com. Herrera has been an Associate Editor at Rolling Stone since July of 2011. Prior to that she was an Online News Editor at Billboard for two years.

Herrera replaces Doree Shafrir, who left Rolling Stone in late January to join BuzzFeed.

It’s getting to the point that it’s difficult to keep up with how much Buzzfeed is expanding. It started in December when the site added Ben Smith to be its new Editor-in-Chief, then continued when Doree Shafrir joined as Executive Editor earlier this month, and now there’s more news: Matt Buchanan, a veteran of Gawker’s Gizmodo, has been added to the team.

According to All Things D, Buchanan will be in charge of Buzzfeed’s new tech section. Joining him is John Herrman, who most recently worked at Popular Mechanics, but is a former Gizmodo editor as well.

Buchanan said the chance to be part of something completely new was enough to lure him away from Gawker Media. “It’s an opportunity to build something completely new on a really exciting platform, which, even though the hallmark of Gizmodo is the immense freedom we all have, you know, the one thing I can never get here is the chance to do it all from scratch,” Buchanan told All Things D. “And to do something that’s different from what a lot other tech sites are doing, I hope.”

If you think this is it for Buzzfeed, you’re wrong. Smith said there will be more, so we’ll try to not blink and catch it all.

Another big name is joining BuzzFeed. Doree Shafrir, most recently a Senior Editor at Rolling Stone, is joining the site to help expand its cultural coverage. The New York Times reports that Shafrir’s title will be Executive Editor, and she’ll report to Ben Smith, who joined the site earlier this month.

“I’ll be leading the launch of new culture-related verticals in the next several months, working most immediately on hiring new editors to build on BuzzFeed’s great team, helping to define the voice and direction of our pop culture content — and also contributing myself,” Shafrir told the Times.

With all the new hires, it’s worth wondering if one day people will consider BuzzFeed as more than just a place filled with top ten lists and pictures of kittens. The site has a long way to go before it breaks that stigma, but it certainly is stockpiling the people to make it happen.

It’s official. Last month, we told you that Doree Shafrir, formerly of The New York Observer and Gawker, was prepping to move to Rolling Stone to act as senior editor for the magazine’s site, RollingStone.com. Today, the magazine made the official announcement via Twitter:

Yesterday marked Shafrir’s first day on the job.

Doree Shafrir, who has held high-profile gigs at the New York Observer and Gawker, is heading to Rolling Stone to serve as the senior editor of RollingStone.com.

Wrote Shafrir on her personal Tumblr:

So: some news! I’m going to be a senior editor at Rollingstone.com as of November 1.

I AM SO EXCITED.

LIKE, BEYOND.

Beyond exciting indeed!

As revealed by TheAwl.com yesterday, and confirmed by Gawker editor-in-chief Gabriel Snyder via Twitter, it looks like Doree Shafrir will be returning to Nick Denton‘s empire in the New Year.

TV writer Richard Lawson will be back, too, Snyder tweeted. He left Gawker earlier this year to work for TV.com.

Shafrir left Gawker in 2007 to join The New York Observer, but was among those let go from the paper in June.

Could these decisions to return to the blog have anything to do with Gawker’s recent decision to offer its writers full-time employment and benefits?

Doree Returns (To Gawker) –TheAwl

Previously: Gawker Offers Writers Full-Time Employment

Earlier this week, The New York Observer said good-bye to editor Peter Kaplan, and now there are rumors swirling that more staffers are heading out the door.

Daily Intel has a report that newly appointed editor-in-chief Tom McGeveran is handing out pink slips today, while Gawker has a tentative list of those who are rumored to be victims of the axe, including Matt Haber, Spencer Morgan, Doree Shafrir, Chris Shott, Peter Stevenson and John Vorwald.

We’re going to keep on this story as it develops but drop us a line or leave us a note in the comments if you hear anything.

Update: Doree Shafrir reposted the Gawker item on her Twitter feed basically confirming the whole mess. Sad times!

Another update: Haber tells us through his Observer email “All’s well.”

More: The New York Times Media Decoder blog has more information about the bloodbath, revealing that a bulk of the layoffs came from the newsroom, one third of which got the axe.

“Reducing the size of our reporting staff was not an easy decision to make,” Christopher Barnes, president of the Observer Media Group, told the Times in a written statement. “Unfortunately, the New York Observer is not immune to the economic pressures being felt industry-wide. The reality is we had to cut back in order to move forward.”