This article was published on October 22, 2012

BuzzFeed opens Los Angeles bureau as focus on viral showbiz news continues


BuzzFeed opens Los Angeles bureau as focus on viral showbiz news continues

Social news organization BuzzFeed has revealed plans to launch a bureau in Los Angeles today. The move is said to help the company compete more “aggressively” for entertainment and celebrity news.

Richard Rushfield, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and formerly the Entertainment Editor of the LA Times, has been appointed as Los Angeles Bureau Chief for BuzzFeed. The company said he will be put directly in charge of building the new team of entertainment reporters and editors.

Meanwhile Kate Aurthur, currently West Coast Editor of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, as well as the former television editor at the Los Angeles times, will become BuzzFeed’s Chief Los Angeles Correspondent. Her responsibilities will include writing about television, movies and celebrity culture on a daily basis.

Also among the new appointments is Michael Hastings, who will be reporting on more ‘hard news’ topics such as national security and politics, as well as contributing to the site’s entertainment coverage as a Correspondent-at-Large.

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Buzzfeed made the headlines last month when it hired video pioneer Ze Frank. He was signed on as Buzzfeed’s Executive Vice President Of Video, in the hope that he will find a way to leverage YouTube in the same way the site is already achieving with Facebook and Twitter. Ze Frank is most known for his work in 2006 with ‘A Show with Ze Frank’, which really embedded the fast, jump-cut style of YouTube video editing still popular today.

Until now BuzzFeed has been based solely in New York. The website and technology platform curates a variety of viral internet content and news through its own editorial team. It was co-founded by Jonah Peretti, who is also the co-founder of The Huffington Post, in 2006.

Image Credit: FREDERIC J. BROWN/Getty Images

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