Politico’s Ben Smith Explains Buzzfeed Move To A Confused Howard Kurtz

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by Frances Martel | 3:56 pm, December 26th, 2011

» 6 comments

Politico‘s Ben Smith left many media heads askew in confusion when he announced that he was leaving the major political publication for Buzzfeed, previously most popularly known for its vast library of adorable animal videos. Howard Kurtz was certainly among those that didn’t see anything about this media move coming, and naturally had a few questions for the new editor in chief on his program yesterday.

“Is this a good fit for you?” Kurtz asked, after (good-naturedly?) mocking Buzzfeed for a few minutes for its coverage of important cat memes and Ryan Gosling. Smith admitted that “the site is going to change a lot,” but what he refused to touch was its status as the “beating, viral heart of the internet.” His addition to the Buzzfeed family, Smith explained, was a reaction to the fact that “people want tos share serious reporting, powerful photojournalism… the kind of stuff we like to do.” He promised “some fails along the way– and possibly some LOLs!”

Kurtz was still a bit concerned about a model based on what social media would like to be fed, as opposed to what editors deemed important, calling it a “tyranny of the majority that can lead to some silly stuff.” Smith dismissed the claim, adding that it was a “great advance from SEO,” which forced writers to “write the dumbest headlines possible so that the machines will like them.” He did, however, promise cat pictures– “and I love cat pictures!”– but not exclusively cat pictures.

The interview via CNN below:

[h/t Buzzfeed]

Ben Smith, Buzzfeed, CNN, Howard Kurtz, LOLCats, Politico, social networking

Anonymous

Howard Kurtz wouldn’t see Karl Rove coming if Karl’s dick was a foot from Howie’s nose.
Anonymous

I get the sense that he wants Buzzfeed to become the next Mediaite.

Watch your back, Dan!
Hout Bosques

In fairness, no one can.

But to your larger point, that, uh, rim shot is, well, nonetheless true (about Kurtz that is; in all fairness to the baked ham that resembles a human, I suspect that distinctive stench of money dipped in the sweat of bottomless corruption would allow even Rove’s most minor appendage to be detected at that distance – we’re talking that standard measure, yes? Not a foot borrowed from an NBA forward, right?). Howard worms himself into the absolute middle of any assembly, whether it be a penguin huddle, a human gaggle, a wildebeest panic, or a lemming run; his shortsightedness renders him almost completely dependent on being told what’s coming & going, then he natters to the consensus his take on the autonomic response from its lowest most reactionary & reptilian parts; & to increase the paradox, his senses nonetheless are constantly pitched at that level – all 6 of them: a reduced version of typical human five, plus one more excised from a disordered spider.

The marvel is that he manages to stay employed as a sort of political cultural translator while rendering mistranslations so often, & often so wildly he’s no less reliable as a reverse indicator.
SNAPTIE: Libs R Just Ignorant

He’s jumping off the sinking ship. Politico is “Hemorrhaging” money, Losing web Traffic..So bad they asked MSNBC for a bailout. http://news.yahoo.com/under-assault-liberal-bias-politico-traffic-dives-064357094.html
Anonymous

The only thing mediaite has to worry about is other websites stealing their videos/content. As a big aggregate, that’s buzzfeeds job… expect nearly EVERY mediaite story to pop up there, except with less political insight (unless it’s Ben Smith).

This blogging cat LOL bullshit nonsense will stop attracting people eventually, so Ben is right. It’s another thing if buzzfeed can actually pull it off though. THey’ve been scooping up writers from various outlets but I wonder how that will pan out..
Michael T.

If you have some time to waste, I suggest you checkout buzzfeed.com.

It’s absolutely dreadful.

It actually makes disorganized (hard to navigate) sites like thedailybeast.com and thewrap.com look almost respectable.

To say that Ben Smith has a daunting task ahead would be a major understatement.