Danielle Belton Named Top Editor of HuffPost

Ms. Belton, 43, the editor in chief of The Root, a Black news and culture site owned by G/O Media, was offered the job last week.

HuffPost, originally known as The Huffington Post after its founder Arianna Huffington, has struggled financially in recent years in the competitive digital news space. Its most recent editor in chief, Lydia Polgreen, a former Times editor who had led the website since 2016, left for Gimlet Media last March. HuffPost has since been led by the executive editor, Hillary Frey.

BuzzFeed announced in November that it was acquiring HuffPost from Verizon Media. On March 9, shortly after the deal was completed, BuzzFeed laid off 47 HuffPost employees and closed the publication’s Canadian edition. Mr. Peretti said at the time that the cost-cutting was required because HuffPost had lost more than $20 million in 2020 and projected it would lose the same amount this year.

The company was criticized for the way it handled the layoff announcement, which included requiring employees to use the password “spr!ngisH3r3,” a variation on “spring is here,” to enter the video meeting.

Ms. Belton now faces the task of uniting a reeling newsroom and charting a new course for the publication under BuzzFeed. She will report to Mark Schoofs, the editor in chief of BuzzFeed, though the two publications will have separate editorial teams and websites.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/business/media/huffpost-danielle-belton-editor-in-chief.html