{"id":88652,"date":"2014-03-26T01:00:56","date_gmt":"2014-03-26T06:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2014\/03\/26\/the-digital-migration-becomes-a-stampede-2\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:15:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:15:32","slug":"the-digital-migration-becomes-a-stampede-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2014\/03\/26\/the-digital-migration-becomes-a-stampede-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Digital Migration Becomes a Stampede"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent years, a number of legacy journalists\u2014some victims of layoffs or facing the prospect of job loss\u2014have moved to the digital news realm, often at small or medium sized startups.<\/p>\n\n

But the breadth and scope of this migration seemed to change in 2013\u2014and one event in particular emerged as a milestone. That was the July announcement that data wunderkind Nate Silver was taking his FiveThirtyEight blog, a 2012 presidential campaign phenomenon, from The New York Times to ESPN.\u00a0 While the sports network is itself a legacy organization, Silver\u2019s decision to move his popular political blog away from one of the most prestigious print legacy news outlets generated major attention. Then last fall, things really accelerated.<\/p>\n\n

In September 2013, Megan Liberman left the New York Times to take over as editor of an expanding Yahoo News operation.\u00a0 She soon brought with her several other high-profile Times employees, Matt Bai and David Pogue, hired former Newsweek and Daily Beast staffer Daniel Klaidman and signed former CBS News anchor Katie Couric\u00a0 for a reported $6 million a year. <\/b><\/p>\n\n

Perhaps the biggest news of October 2013 was the announcement that Glenn Greenwald would join First Look Media, a digital news venture being bankrolled by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.\u00a0 A number of other journalists, among them former Rolling Stone executive editor Eric Bates, came aboard First Look Media quickly.\u00a0 In February, Matt Taibbi, whose work at Rolling Stone has focused on the misdeeds of Wall Street, was added to the roster along with Andy Carvin, a former NPR staffer known for his prodigious tweeting about the Arab Spring.<\/p>\n\n

BuzzFeed, a site that began branching into more serious news coverage when it hired Ben Smith from Politico in 2012, had already made one significant move in June 2013 when it announced the hiring of the Guardian\u2019s Miriam Elder to oversee an expansion of foreign coverage. Then in October it expanded news operations again, hiring Mark Schoofs\u2014who came from ProPublica after a stint at The Wall Street Journal\u2014to head its new investigative news unit that will include about 10 reporters.<\/p>\n\n

Also in October came the news that Jim Roberts, a former assistant managing editor at The New York Times, was hired as chief content officer at Mashable to oversee a significant editorial expansion there.\u00a0 Roberts said that he doesn\u2019t think the uptick in digital hiring represents the beginning of a legacy media apocalypse, but that it is meaningful. \u201cI still see quality journalists working for legacy journalism,\u201d he said. But \u201clegacy media does need to pay attention\u201d to the shifting bodies, he added. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to take this seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\"PJ_14.03.15_ShiftingResources_640px\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

In January 2014, after The Washington Post rejected his proposal for a new journalistic venture at a reported cost of eight figures, 29-year-old Ezra Klein took his Project X concept to Vox Media, a digital native company that also publishes SB Nation and Verve. Among those who quickly followed Klein to his new home were fellow Post staffers Melissa Bell, Dylan Matthews, Max Fisher, Brad Plumer and Sarah Kliff as well as Slate economics blogger Matthew Yglesias.<\/p>\n\n

Then in February, 65-year-old Bill Keller\u2014the former executive editor of \u00a0The New York Times who still wrote a column there\u2014departed to become editor-in-chief of a digital nonprofit news organization focused on the criminal justice system. A Times article reported that the new operation, called The Marshall Project, would have about a $5 million budget to support a staff of about 30.<\/p>\n\n

And sometimes the competition for talent is between the digital natives themselves as in early March, when the fledgling First Look Media hired away editor John Cook from Gawker, one of the established digital outlets at 12 years old.<\/p>\n\n

If one needed further evidence that digital news is a hot employment market, the flow of job applicants is Exhibit A.\u00a0 A New York magazine story quoted Klein as saying he received more than 600 r\u00e9sum\u00e9s within three days after announcing Project X.\u00a0 Bates, the executive editor at First Look Media, said that he was so \u201cinundated\u201d with r\u00e9sum\u00e9s\u00a0that \u201cI haven\u2019t bothered to count them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Jimmy Soni, the managing editor of The Huffington Post Media Group, conducts two or three job interviews a day. He also says The Huffington Post Editorial Fellowship Program\u2014designed to recruit new digital journalists\u2014has already attracted more than 10,000 applicants.<\/p>\n\n

[BuzzFeed]<\/p>\n\n\n

[legacy organizations]<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/h2>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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