Turmoil at the Daily Beast has staffers headed for the exits

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Joanna Coles and Ben Sherwood take control at Daily Beast and try to gin up fresh buzz. But with new layoffs and buyouts, some journalists have had enough.

Weeks into former president Donald Trump’s criminal trial this spring, Joanna Coles — one of two veteran media bosses trying to inject new life into the Daily Beast — had a story idea.

After years of relative stability, dozens of staffers are headed for the exits this week. Twenty-two people — roughly 60 percent of the site’s unionized journalists — have accepted a buyout package. And eight nonunion staffers, including several editors, were laid off Thursday. As larger rivals such as Vice News and BuzzFeed News ceased to exist amid a business downturn for digital media, the Daily Beast — nestled within the tech-and-media conglomerate IAC — managed to avoid layoffs.But the site did lose millions of dollars for its parent company, and it was put up for sale in 2023. This spring, Coles and Sherwood purchased a combined 49 percent stake in the company, while IAC kept 51 percent.

Coles often starts meetings by talking about what she’s “obsessed” with, a list that has included the death of “Super Size Me” documentarian Morgan Spurlock, Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon’s impending prison sentence and singer Celine Dion’s stiff-person-syndrome diagnosis, according to recordings of meetings obtained by The Post.

Sherwood assured staffers in the meeting they didn’t actually have to pursue many of Coles’s ideas. And in his interview with The Post, he defended her proposals as part of a creative editorial process, describing her as a “hilarious British character that is full of life and full of ideas.”

 

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