Nico Hines has joined The Daily Beast as its new London editor. Hines comes to the site from The Times (of London), where he had worked since 2006. He most recently served as the paper’s Washington correspondent.
In a memo announcing the move, Tina Brown wrote that Hines is “a first-rate reporter whose wit and flair will be right at home on The Beast.”
The full note from Brown is below.
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Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s chief strategist, has joined The Daily Beast as a columnist. “Stuart’s eclectic background and prodigious writing talent make him a wonderful addition to our team,” said Tina Brown, in a memo to staffers.
This is the second big political hire for the site this month. Jon Favreau, President Obama’s speechwriter, recently came aboard.
The full note from Brown is below.
Jon Favreau, the former speechwriter for President Obama, is joining The Daily Beast. According to a note from Tina Brown, Favreau will join the site as a bi-weekly columnist.
Favreau left the Obama administration earlier this month. He got his start in politics writing speeches for John Kerry.
Below is Brown’s full memo.
Josh DuBois, who left his position as faith advisor for President Barack Obama early last month, is joining The Daily Beast. According to a memo obtained by Politico, Dubois will be the site’s new faith columnist.
Dubois was one of President Obama’s longest tenured assistants, most recently serving as executive director of the White House’s Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
In a memo, Tina Brown said Dubois’ column will focus on “The role of faith in solving pressing social problems.”
Newsweek/The Daily Beast Company has renamed itself “NewsBeast.” Above is a photo from The Daily Beast’s Instagram, capturing the announcement from Tina Brown and Baba Shetty. Newsweek and The Daily Beast are keeping their names; this is only a change for the company.
We imagine Brown and Shetty decided to change to NewsBeast because it sounds cool, but we cannot confirm that as it is Friday and we’d rather just roll with an unverified, absurd guess.
Andrew Sullivan‘s new site — ad free and completely reader-supported — arrives Monday. Since announcing he was setting off on his own earlier this month, Sullivan reports that has already raised over half a million dollars in pre-subscriptions:
The meter and new ad-free site arrives Monday; we migrate (I seriously have no idea what that means) from the Beast over the weekend. But we just passed $500K in pre-subscriptions. Which is to say: holy shit. Seriously: this is still a little hard to absorb. But thank you so much.
Not a bad way to start things off.
As Newsweek/The Daily Beast approaches the end of the Newsweek era, there are going to be a lot of changes to the brand. In going all digital, staffers will move on and, according to Bloomberg News, there might be a paywall erected.
A Daily Beast spokesperson said that the site is considering launching a metered paywall, much like the New York Times does now. So visitors to The Daily Beast would be able to read a certain amount of articles for free per month, and then, once that number is exceeded, be asked to pay to read more.
And just like the with the Times, good people will pay, and bad people will Google the link to the article and read it for free.
With the twilight of Newsweek upon us, Tina Brown gave an interview to New York, and discussed the shuttering of the once iconic magazine. Brown called taking over Newsweek a “romantic gamble,” but then admits that the endeavor was “completely insane.”
It’s not surprising to hear her say that, especially since she also reveals it cost $42 million just to print Newsweek. If anything qualifies as being completely insane, that’s it.
The good news is that according to Brown, The Daily Beast is doing fantastic. She said that the site recently hit almost 20 million unique visitors, and with the albatross that is Newsweek shed, she’s finally able to just focus on content.
Click through for the entire interview with Brown, it’s well worth your time.
After last week’s head-spinning scene where real-life democrats took campaign advice from fictional politicians (Chris Noth, you’ve got my vote), I thought I’d pretty much covered the landscape of presidential politics among the Wednesday Michael’s crowd. Nothing doing. Before I could settle in for my lunch with PR maven Leslie Stevens and cosmetics entrepreneur Patti Pao, CNBC’s Joe Kernen called me over to meet Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin who was on the air with Joe earlier today deconstructing last night’s debates (We suggest a whip and a chair for the moderator of next week’s match-up) and is scheduled to appear on Sean Hannity‘s broadcast on Fox this evening.
The guys told me they were looking for “equal time,” since last week’s column was all about the democratic point of view. I’m always happy to chat with Joe whose fabulously smart 12-year-old daughter, Blake Kernen is one of my favorite young writers. Not surprisingly, Senator Johnson told me he thought Mitt Romney won the debate hands down. “He shattered the caricature (the Obama campaign) has been pushing. It’s hard to paint that picture when (Romney) came out so strong and showed such a command of the issues. He offered the specifics that Obama did not. Last night did nothing to stop the momentum (Romney) has been gathering.” He also called out the president for being “purposely misleading” on Libya. While the senator admitted the president was “a little more energetic” he concluded, “He’s got nothing.”
Senator Johnson, who predicts it’s going to be a ”close election,” says Vice President Joe Biden‘s “rude” performance during his debate with Representative Paul Ryan had a lingering negative effect on the president’s favorable ratings and pointed to CNN’s recent poll which showed most viewers gave last night’s segment on the economy to Romney as an indication that the republican challenger is winning on the issue voters care most about. “In both debates, Romney showed that he can work with the other side. Americans have to ask themselves, ‘Do we want four more years of gridlock and a president who doesn’t know how to lead?”
Things lightened up considerably when I joined Leslie and Patti at our table to talk about the launch of Patti’s new skincare line Restorsea, which debuted at Bergdorf Goodman on Monday. Smart, savvy and absolutely passionate about skincare, Patti has built an impressive track record in the beauty business with stints at Avon and Elizabeth Arden. The Harvard Business School graduate introduced glycolic acid to the beauty industry and made Avon’s Anew the industry standard that is today.
She has continued to search out the latest innovations for the luxury market in her own consulting firm Pao Principle which she launched in 2005. Utilizing her deep ties to China, Patti created a survey asking 353 billionaires in the country (yes, you read that right) questions relating to handbags and fine jewelry. Doing so created a much sought after database when the survey findings made The New York Times, Women’s Wear Daily, Forbes and Fortune. That stroke of marketing genius branded her LVMH’s luxury expert, and she picked up three clients in Norway which turned out to be a fateful turn of events.
The cons of attending journalism school can typically be narrowed down to cost of tuition, the importance of real-life job experience, and the cost of tuition. But the contacts you’ll gain from a formal education can’t be underestimated — especially in a business where relationships are everything.
“I made friends with other journalism majors, and those connections have been invaluable in my career,” agreed Lauren Streib, a UNC journalism grad who is now an assistant editor at The Daily Beast. When you first graduate, you all may have entry-level positions or internships, but in about 10 years, your friends will be in charge of hiring decisions or have close relationships with people who do. In 20 years, you’ll be running the show.
Read more in 6 Reasons a Journalism Degree Is Still Necessary. [Mediabistro AvantGuild subscription required]
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