New York, NY August 27, 2013 - BuzzFeed announced today that it has continued to expand and shape the social news site's foreign and overseas coverage with the addition of several international hires. Led by Miriam Elder, BuzzFeed's Foreign Editor, Sheera Frenkel will serve as BuzzFeed's Middle East correspondent based in Cairo and Mike Giglio will serve as Middle East correspondent with a focus on the conflict in Syria and will be based in Istanbul. Frenkel and Giglio join BuzzFeed's Eastern European correspondent, Max Seddon, on the site's growing roster of foreign reporters who will break news and cover major world events.
"Understanding the increasingly interconnected world is more important, and more possible, now than ever before. And yet, foreign coverage is one of the last spheres where new media haven't competed aggressively with newspapers and television networks," said Elder. "We see an opportunity at BuzzFeed to reinvent international news for the social age and an immediacy in original reporting from areas like Russia and the Middle East that are under intense scrutiny in the media bubble. Sheera, Mike and Max will bring their unparalleled expertise and deeply rooted knowledge of foreign news to a hungry online audience. "
"Social media brought the conflicts in Egypt to a global audience and there's an appetite for foreign reporting among BuzzFeed's socially engaged audience," said Frenkel. "The international beat is changing rapidly because of the social web, and no one gets that the way BuzzFeed does."
"BuzzFeed has been doing great journalism in America and I'm looking forward to helping them bring it global," said Giglio. " It will be exciting to be a part of this new foreign team."
Sheera Frenkel has been the Middle East Correspondent for the Times of London for the last five years, and is a frequent contributor to NPR and McClatchy Newspapers. Frenkel has covered pretty much every conflict in the Middle East over the last 7 years, and when the Arab Spring began, travelled across the region, ultimately visiting 12 countries in three months. In 2010 she won the British Press Award for young journalist of the year for exposing the IDF's use of white phosphorous in the Gaza Strip.
Mike Giglio joins BuzzFeed from The Daily Beast and Newsweek. Giglio has been based in Istanbul with a primary focus on Egypt, Turkey and Syria. Prior to that, he was in London where he covered the phone hacking scandal and 2011 riots. He also worked the international desk for Newsweek in New York.
Frenkel will be based in Cairo and begins September 6, 2013. Giglio will be based in Turkey and starts October 7th.
Media Contact :
Catherine Bartosevich
BuzzFeed, Press Director
Catherine.Bartosevich@buzzfeed.com
301.807.2960
About BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed is the leading media company for the social age, intensely focused on delivering high-quality original reporting, insight, and viral content across a rapidly expanding array of subject areas. Our technology powers the social distribution of content, detects what is trending on the web, and connects people in realtime with the hottest content of the moment. Our site is rapidly growing and reaches more than 60 million monthly unique visitors. Jonah Peretti, founder & CEO of BuzzFeed, previously co-founded the Huffington Post. Ben Smith is its Editor-in-chief, Jon Steinberg is its President & COO and Kenneth Lerer is the Executive Chairman.