decided that Rutenberg would officially move off of the column and concentrate on those sorts of big swings full-time, and that was the development that led to Baquet and Smith’s Lambs Club lunch.
“Jim Rutenberg is one of our biggest stars,” Baquet told me. “He and I had already been discussing for months his moving on to doing large enterprise and working on the magazine. The Murdoch story was the best piece of media enterprise of the year. So I was already thinking of what our next steps would be on the media column.
Smith, an O.G. political-blog star and scoop hound who roped in a devoted readership during his years at theand Politico, lived those ups and downs during his time at BuzzFeed, from high-impact feats of enterprise journalism , to the controversial decision to publish the Steele dossier, to the industry headwinds that resulted in a few dozen BuzzFeed News layoffs at the beginning of last year. With its ever-diversifying revenue streams , BuzzFeed has since stabilized and is.
Not so, Smith insisted when I got him on the phone. “Last year was pretty tough, but we’re in a really strong position now,” he said. “There’s not a ton between the lines here. I’d been starting to think about what I wanted, thinking I wanted to write and report more, and around that time, Dean reached out to me. He didn’t have to say much. He just sort of floated the idea of the column.
who chronicled Smith and the evolution of BuzzFeed in her book about the media industry last year. “He’s a great reporter and has trained a younger team of terrific political talent for every presidential race since 2012,” she said. “He’s going to give you tough competition.”