Blogs and Stories
Q and A with Tina Brown
What is The Daily Beast?
It's a speedy, smart edit of the web from the merciless point of view of what interests the editors. The Daily Beast is the omnivorous friend who hears about the best stuff and forwards it to you with a twist. It allows you to lead the conversation, rather than simply follow it. (Watch Tina Brown discuss The Daily Beast on Good Morning America.)
Does the world really need another news aggregator?
The Daily Beast doesn't aggregate. It sifts, sorts, and curates. We're as much about what's not there as what is. And we freshen the stream with a good helping of our own original content from a wonderfully diverse group of contributors … satirist Christopher Buckley, historian Sean Wilentz, former McCain adviser Mark McKinnon, Project Runway’s Laura Bennett, the former editor of Al-Hayat Salameh Nematt, Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, Nick Ciarelli who founded Think Secret, and many others.
What's with the name?
Among other things, it's the name of the newspaper in Scoop, Evelyn Waugh's hilarious satire of Fleet Street, which happens to be my favorite novel of all time. For those who prefer Henry James, let's just say the beast knows its way through the jungle.
When you were born, the smallest computer was the size of a subway car. Aren't you a little old to be doing a web startup?
Yeah, I'm a real dinosaur. Dinosaurs are big, though. Maybe another reason to call it The Daily Beast.
Why should I visit you when there’s already Slate/Drudge/Huffington Post/TPM/Google News and every other magazine and newspaper?
Sensibility, darling.
Anyway, you don't have to use it instead. Just use it first. I shall certainly continue with my own forays around the web. But we all have only one pair of eyes and ears. We're hoping that if you like the sensibility The Daily Beast brings to choosing news and opinion then you'll trust us to be the lens you view it through.
You burned through millions at Talk. Are you going to bankrupt Diller?
Even I don't know how to spend money that fast.
Are you doing this because you're jealous of Arianna Huffington?
Not entirely, though I have always followed Arianna's career with the liveliest interest. She is a very old friend, going back to when she was at Cambridge and I was at Oxford. I love what she has achieved at HuffPo. And her partner Ken Lerer, another old friend, has also been a total mensch about the birthing of our beast.
I heard you make your assistant print out the Internet for you. Is that true?
The Internet is too big to print out. That's the whole point.
You've only done print. What makes you think you understand the web?
I'm not completely sure how a printing press works, but that never stopped me. Anyway, you don't have to be an oceanographer to love surfing. And I’m surrounded by some talented web experts, including our general manager Caroline Marks, who was in charge of social media at Comcast, our site developers Code and Theory, and Michael Jackson and Nick Lehman of IAC.
One thing I think I do understand about the web is that it morphs with amazing speed. The Daily Beast will evolve before your eyes. We began building our site in mid-July and wanted to put it up ASAP in beta so that its further development could be driven by the interplay between our sensibility and our users’ responses; for example through our Feed The Beast feature.
Do you actually read anything online? If so, what?
A lot. I'm always checking in with HuffPo, Drudge, RealClearPolitics, Talking Points Memo, Politico, Andrew Sullivan, Hendrik Hertzberg, The Smoking Gun, TMZ, Hungry Girl, The Guardian, Paid Content, Arts and Letters Daily, Matt Yglesias, First Post, BBC, Romenesko, Head Butler … Aargh … Stop me before I read more …
Was quitting The New Yorker the biggest mistake of your life?
To every thing (turn turn turn) there is a season. If I'd stayed at The New Yorker I'd never have written a best seller. More important, there'd be no such animal as The Daily Beast. I have the best of both worlds. I can edit The Daily Beast and read The New Yorker.
Micah Garen/Four Corners Media
Why join IAC? Why not launch The Daily Beast as a standalone endeavor?
I have always wanted to work with Barry Diller, period. I have known him for 20 years and admire his audacity, acumen, and vision. He has wanted to launch a site like this for a while and for me it makes total sense to have the expertise and the muscle of his company behind us. Plus IAC has this really cool building in Chelsea close to some of the best cupcake bakeries in town.
Did you recruit your editorial team over breakfast at Michael's?
No, over breakfast at the Empire Diner on 10th Avenue and trust me, it's a dream team. We are a dozen altogether. Edward Felsenthal, our executive editor, came from the Wall Street Journal, as did our managing editor, Jane Spencer. Senior editors Bryan Curtis and Nicholas Wapshott came from Slate and the Sun, home page editor Henry Seltzer from USmagazine.com, features editor Will Doig from Nerve.com. Plus we’ve got a cadre of brainiac gremlins fresh out of school.
Why are reporters so mean to powerful women?
Don't worry. Powerful women always interpret hostility as unrequited love.
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Clearly a classy endeavor. Love the format and design!
what bestseller?
I love the clean white page and graphics. Reminds me of when you changed The New Yorker from cluttered to clean.It is one of the most visually appealing sites I have seen.
"Powerful women always interpret hostility as unrequited love." Great quote. Congrats on the launch. Thanks for the new bookmark.
Why I love the idea of a direct competitor to Huffington, this design is terrible. The navigation is anything but intuitive, difficult if not impossible to navigate this site. Look forward to seeing your improvements from this beta (and please don't continue to stamp as beta in a year, as I've seen other sites do).
Come on, Tina: You check on TMZ? For shame. Anyway -- welcome to the fray.
I can't believe you launched this site with out all of the technical kinks worked out. Every other page doesn't work, I had to try and register several times. I know it's a BETA, but this is a poor showing. Hopefully things will level off, but this is clearly far from prime time ready - shocked IAC would let it out.
Love it! Glad you're up and running.
Well done Tina. As ever you are enterprising, interesting and professional. We also love you and wish you success with much enjoyment attached.
Shaun.
Congratulations!
db is not a bookmark, its a homepage quick notes, since you are in Beta (my least favorite fraternity): 1. when i signed up, why not send a quick welcoming email. 2. let users rate the comments like amazon allows rating the reviewers with beasts instead of stars, and rank them accordingly. Top beast gets to visit gehry's HQ. 3. set up the "previous/pause/next" to show 3-4 pics, not just one. small suggestions for a needed site, and my new home....clint smoker.
How cute that you named the site for yourself.
Please stop savaging women. We get it you're elite and better than the regular little women who wipe your table and press the laundry but when you disrespect legitimate women political leaders you HURT all women especially the non elite women.
Save for the feather footed little type and the plashy little photos, it's a beautiful thing.. up to a point. Was it stitched together with the help of Harold Evans, the white space guru?
Tony G, the multimedium
"Don't worry. Powerful women always interpret hostility as unrequited love."
Yes, I'm sure that they do. But there is always someone who can overwhelm them with true love to unlock their sexual passion. Opening that door though, reveals worlds hitherto unknown and an addictive environment in which to build a new Life, every day, with it not necessarily being recognised as the same Life as the day before, such is ITs Power. However, that is perfectly normal in Progressive Evolution IntelAIgently Designed for Media Manipulation/Content Syndication ..[for all those Business Heads working for their Currency Fix]
Good Luck, Tina, .... and let's hope that you can make a Difference .... for Change is Needed to Swap the Despondency of Stagnation for the Excitement of ReInvention.
Although that Particular and Peculiar Discipline does require Rather More Intelligence than is Nationally/Internationally shown..... an Admitted Failure which is still not Addresed, suggesting that the Solution lies to be Found and/or Purchased in Foreign Fields. :-)
You will succeed by attracting people like me, from waaay beyond Manhattan (Puget Sound). Loved your TV show and looking forward to your snappy site.
Some serious right-wing bias going on at this site, I think.
Good blog. Fine design. Will keep daily but not beastly watch on contents.
Love the look; well-designed. "Right wing bias'?!?!? Oh say it isn't so!
Beautiful site. Too bad about the content.
I was told about this site at a lecture given today at USC.
From what I've seen so far, I love it!
the layout is great: love the black white and red, the clear design and big white space.
I also really liked how you set up the stories, cheat sheet, big fat story etc
This site will def be on my top lists to frequent for a good news filter. The stories you've selected so far are far more interesting than other news sites I've seen today.
Good Luck!
Nice site except....Yikes! I'm being followed all over the page by
"Q&A with Tina Brown
by The Daily Beast"
which is a little unnerving
Congrats on the new website. Looking Good.
Charles
Co-Author "No Time To Think" and Owner TheFeldmanBlog.com
I have to agree that the crawl on the side is terribly annoying. To find the title and author we should only need to look up to the top of our browser widow. What bothers me even more is that the author's name is followed by three really stupid icons - we know what a web page is, we don't need an Info button that tells us, and while it may seem to work design-wise to have 3 little buttons if you're going to have one, then at least make the second two different! That little radiating icon in the middle *means* RSS - unless someone has changed it to mean volume control, which is what it looks like!
As to the claim that The Daily Beast, "allows you to lead the conversation" how about giving us some formatting control over posts?
Finally (and so far I have only skimmed the front page, read two articles, and signed up in order to be able to post, so I'm sure I have yet to find other bugs in your beta), when creating a form for people to register, never, ever ask them to choose a password at the end right below their email address! The password choice should go beneath the "Username:" not under "Email Address:" as it gives the appearance that you are asking for the password to someone's email account!
As you've pointed out that this site is still in beta, how about a big link somewhere pointing to a forum where we can report these issues to your design and technical teams? There is not much point in launching a beta site unless you are looking for feedback!
Is this going to be another huge pr splash in the beginning and then die a long painful death like some of the mags you've run and that wonderful television show. Who keeps funding this stuff? I need to get me som eof this free money.
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