The Daily Beast

Not to be confused with The Beast (newspaper).
This article is about American news website. For the fictional newspaper named The Beast, see Scoop (novel).
The Daily Beast
Available in English
Owner IAC
Created by Tina Brown
Editor John Avlon
Website thedailybeast.com
Alexa rank Increase 892 (August 2016)
Registration None
Launched October 6, 2008 (2008-10-06)
Current status active

The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website, with progressive liberal views, 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 began publishing on October 6, 2008, The Beast's founding editor was Tina Brown, a former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine. 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 November 12, 2010, The Daily Beast and Newsweek announced a merger deal, creating a combined company, The Newsweek Daily Beast Company. On August 3, 2013, IAC, owner of The Daily Beast, sold Newsweek (without "The Daily Beast") to IBT Media, owner of the International Business Times.[6] In September 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 Nieman Lab, 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 Nieman Lab 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, P. J. O'Rourke, Maajid Nawaz, Olivia Nuzzi, 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, Nick Romeo, 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 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."

Controversies

Plagiarism

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.[15][16] An immediate internal investigation by The Daily Beast led to Posner's dismissal.[17]

Relation with the Clinton campaign

The Daily Beast is owned by IAC, where Vice Chair of the Clinton Foundation, Chelsea Clinton, serves on the board of directors.[18]

In March 2016, Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks alleged that The Daily Beast was biased in favour of the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, stating that from the onset of the campaign in 2014, the website had twice as many positive as negative articles on Clinton.[19]

2016 Olympics

On August 11, 2016, the Daily Beast published an article titled "I Got Three Grindr Dates in an Hour in the Olympic Village",[20] written by Nico Hines, the site's London editor, who was assigned to cover the Olympic Games.[21] Hines, a straight married man, signed up for several gay and straight dating apps, including Tinder, Bumble and Grindr, and documented his experiences in the Olympic Village. While not specifically naming names, Hines provided enough detail in the article to identify individual athletes, leading to widespread criticism that this information could be used against closeted gay athletes, especially those living in repressive countries.[22] Facing intense backlash online,[23][24][25][26] the Daily Beast edited the piece to remove details that could allow athletes to be identified, and editor-in-chief John Avlon added a lengthy editor's note. Criticism challenging the value of the piece continued,[27] and the Daily Beast eventually removed the article altogether and issued an apology.[28]

Andrew M Seaman, ethics committee chair for the Society of Professional Journalists, called the article "journalistic trash, unethical and dangerous".[29] The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association stated "The reporting was unethical, extremely careless of individual privacy and potentially dangerous to the athletes".[30] Vince Gonzales, professor of professional practice at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism wrote "I think this borders on journalistic malpractice".[30] President of GLAAD, Sarah Kate Ellis, wrote "How this reporter thought it was OK — or that somehow it was in the public's interest — to write about his deceitful encounters with these men reflects a complete lack of judgment and disregard for basic decency, not to mention the ethics of journalism".[30]

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. 1 2 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 Nieman Lab
  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 Nieman Lab 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. ↑ "Plagiarism at the Daily Beast: Gerald Posner concedes lifting from the Miami Herald". Slate Magazine. February 2010
  16. ↑ Shafer, Jack (February 2010). "More Posner Plagiarism". Slate. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  17. ↑ Shafer, Jack (February 11, 2010). "The Posner Plagiarism Perplex". Slate. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  18. ↑ Kirell, Andrew (October 13, 2015). "Inside the Slimy World of Chelsea Clinton Conspiracy Theories". The Daily Beast.
  19. ↑ "The Daily Beast Disses Bernie Sanders". April 5, 2016. The Young Turks, via YouTube.
  20. ↑ Hines, Nico (2016-08-11). "The Other Olympic Sport in Rio: Swiping". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  21. ↑ "Nico Hines".
  22. ↑ "Rio 2016: Daily Beast 'sorry for outing gay athletes'". BBC News. 12 August 2016.
  23. ↑ Mic. "Seriously, F*ck That 'Daily Beast' Gay-Baiting, Life-Threatening Olympics Piece". Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  24. ↑ "Everyone's Pissed At This Straight Journalist Who Used Grindr To Out Gay Athletes In Rio". Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  25. ↑ Williams, Mary Elizabeth. "Olympic sex reporting gone wrong: How not to cover the international athlete hook-up scene". Salon. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  26. ↑ Stern, Mark Joseph (2016-08-11). "This Daily Beast Grindr Stunt Is Sleazy, Dangerous, and Wildly Unethical". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  27. ↑ Lopez, German (11 August 2016). "The Daily Beast tried to prove Olympians like sex, but instead may have outed gay athletes".
  28. ↑ "A Note From the Editors". 12 August 2016.
  29. ↑ Guarino, Ben (August 12, 2016). "'Trash, unethical and dangerous': Daily Beast lambasted for Olympic dating article". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  30. 1 2 3 Maltais, Michelle (August 12, 2016). "Bad form at the Olympics in Daily Beast's Grindr-baiting story". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 13, 2016.

External links

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