New York, March 15, 2013 - Social news site BuzzFeed announced today it has hired Peter Lauria to create a new kind of business vertical for the social web. Lauria, a veteran reporter who has covered the intersection of media, technology, and finance for more than a decade, will build a team to meld serious and smart scoops and analysis with the social web as the starting point.
BuzzFeed takes the social web — from Twitter to Facebook to Pinterest to YouTube — as its starting point, and Lauria and his team will be reporting and writing the kind of compelling business content people will want to share on Twitter, Facebook and, particularly, in the massive social business conversation on LinkedIn.
"Peter Lauria is a reporter's reporter and has distinguished his coverage by framing hard-hitting business news around the moguls and the large trends that move companies and deals. I'm thrilled that we're bringing him in to do the kind of smart and original reporting that people want to read and share," said BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith.
"I am beyond excited to be joining BuzzFeed. Social media is increasingly becoming the way people discover news, and BuzzFeed does social better than anyone. The opportunity to build a team and vertical around business news is a challenge I've wanted to take on for a while, and the ability to do it at a place that is growing and whose sensibilities so align with mine makes me energized and anxious to get started," said Lauria.
Lauria will also lead the charge in expanding the site's Washington, D.C. BuzzFeed Brews newsmaker series to New York where he will interview CEOs, Wall Street executives and bankers.
Peter Lauria was most recently the Editor-in-charge of U.S. technology, media, and telecom coverage for Reuters and has written for The New York Post, The Daily Beast, The Deal and Mogulite. Lauria has spent more than a decade covering some of the world's biggest and most recognizable companies, from NBC to News Corp. and Yahoo to Google and Facebook. Lauria broke the news of the SiriusXM merger, IAC gaining control of Newsweek Daily Beast and made headlines with his series of scoops about billionaire chairman Sumner Redstone. Lauria will join BuzzFeed in April and launch the business section later this Spring.
To be the first to know when BuzzFeed Business launches, sign up for the newsletter at buzzfeed.com/business.
Media Contact:
Ashley McCollum
BuzzFeed, Press Director
ashley.mccollum@buzzfeed.com
347.977.1411
###
About BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed is the leading social news organization, intensely focused on delivering high-quality original reporting, insight, and social content across a rapidly expanding array of subject areas. BuzzFeed's technology powers the social distribution of content, detects what is trending on the web, and connects people in real-time with the hottest content of the moment. BuzzFeed.com is growing rapidly and reaches more than 40 million monthly unique visitors. Jonah Peretti, founder & CEO of BuzzFeed, is an MIT Media Lab grad who previously co-founded the Huffington Post. Ben Smith is its Editor-in-chief, Google alum Jon Steinberg is President and COO, and Huffington Post co-founder Kenneth Lerer serves as Executive Chairman.