New York Times Media Columnist Ben Smith Leaving To Start a Global News Organization

Alex GriffingJan 4th, 2022, 12:34 pm
 

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The New York Times announced on Tuesday that its media columnist Ben Smith is leaving the paper to start a new global news organization.

Before joining the Times in 2020, Smith served as editor in chief of Buzzfeed for eight years and was a reporter for Politico before that. Smith told Mediaite when asked for a comment: “I guess I’d just say — we’re incredibly excited and believe there’s a huge space for innovation in news.”

“There are 200 million people who are college educated, who read in English, but who no one is really treating like an audience, but who talk to each other and talk to us,” Ben Smith told the Times on Tuesday. “That’s who we see as our audience.”

Smith had received criticism for keeping stock options in Buzzfeed, a holdover from his employment there while reporting extensively on American media — which some saw as a potential conflict of interest. Salon published an article in October 2021 titled, “Why Hasn’t the New York Times Made Ben Smith Sell His BuzzFeed Options Yet?”

While at the New York Times, Smith published an article questioning the business practices of Ozy media, which eventually led to the company announcing it would close – although it has since limped on.

Smith will be joined by the former chief executive of Bloomberg Media, Justin Smith, in his new venture.

Justin Smith offered some detail about their next move on Twitter, writing, “I’ve decided to pursue a personal dream, and a market opportunity, to launch a new kind of global news media company that serves unbiased journalism to a truly global audience.”

 

Sarah Rumpf contributed to this report

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Alex Griffing - Senior Editor

Alex Griffing is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Send tips via email: alexanderg@mediaite.com. Follow him on Twitter: @alexgriffing