Daily Beast Taps Samantha Bee, Kara Swisher, Dick Costolo

If the media industry is burning, Joanna Coles and Ben Sherwood aren’t afraid to play close to the flames.

Each member of this duo left traditional media giants at the top of the game. Sherwood had parlayed a stint as president of ABC News during which “Good Morning America” outmuscled “Today” into a run as the head of all of Disney’s entertainment-focused TV operations. Coles led both Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan before becoming chief content officer at Hearst Magazines and, later, a TV producer.

Now, they crave another run.

Coles and Sherwood in April purchased an equity stake in The Daily Beast, and, after making significant cuts to help the digital publication stay afloat, they feel there’s reason for some cautious optimism about the future. Samantha Bee will co-host a new podcast with Coles. Meanwhile, the Beast is tapping more than 30 prominent journalists, comedians and thought leaders to serve as contributors. Among the list is technology journalist Kara Swisher; TV writers such as Jill Twiss, Jennifer Crittenden and Gaby Allan; former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo; writer/producers such as Larry Wilmore and Phoebe Robinson; and even Daily Beast founding editor Tina Brown.

“Our focus is to be an intelligent tabloid,” says Coles, speaking during what is the two executives’ first interview since acquiring 49% of the publication. Barry Diller’s IAC controls the majority stake. “What we have seen is that the audience responds to sharp, short, relevant pieces.” They are also eager to bring in some humor and satire and a range of smart takes from people including Nell Scovell, Walter Isaacson, Kurt Andersen and Ana Navarro, among others.

The duo aren’t necessarily looking to conquer the world of digital media. They just want to live in it.

“We want this to be a sustainable business, an actual sustainable business that grows and can support even more independent, distinctive journalism,” says Sherwood, noting that “Many of our peers in this space have had to close down, shut down, go out of business.”

Indeed, Sherwood and Coles are trying to take a respected digital outpost and move forward in a year when outlets ranging from CNN to Axios to Pitchfork have trimmed their staffs. The Beast, as it is often known, has for more than a decade made a mark with hard-nosed reportage on top personalities and inside scoops on politics. In 2010, for example, the Beast spurred reaction with a report about then-Viacom chief Sumner Redstone’s fascination with a music group of young women known as the Electric Barbarellas. Redstone drew more attention to the story by calling its author, Peter Lauria, and asking him to divulge his source. “We’re not going to hurt this guy,” Redstone told the reporter. “We just want to sit him down and find out why he did what he did. You will not in any way be revealed. You will be well-rewarded and well-protected.”

And yet, simply put, making money is more difficult when monetizing traffic has become increasingly complex. Several media companies are placing even more emphasis on developing bespoke events and selling subscriptions to niche services. At the Beast, which is a subscription-based outlet, there is hope that maintaining the publication’s upstart voice while narrowing focus and controlling costs can help it stay in the game.

The Daily Beast’s recent travails have played out in quite public fashion, thanks to leaks about the pair’s early days at the helm. More than 20 of the site’s unionized journalists opted for buyouts in June, and Coles has been dogged by revelations about her story obsessions and ideas she throws out to the staff.  

“We were not surprised” by the scrutiny, says Sherwood. “Change involves disruption. Sometimes, it involves hard criticisms and feelings get hurt.” The pair also recognized that some of the reporters currently active in media coverage previously worked at the Beast and would no doubt have interest in its behind-the-scenes machinations.

But things had to change, the duo emphasized. “When we got here, we felt the pieces were very long and that nobody has time to reach that on their phones anymore,” says Coles. She has chosen to focus on “politics, people, power and pop culture” and take a strong interest in “extremes,” such as “extreme people extreme wealth, extreme appearances, extreme power, extreme behavior.” She is proud of the Beast’s reportage on Barron Trump’s intent to attend New York University, but also of in-depth coverage – the Beast will still do long pieces, she says – including a 4,000-word article by writer Harry Lambert on Washington Post CEO Will Lewis.

“That was a fantastic piece, and it drove a lot of subscriptions, but we don’t need to do that every time,” Coles says, adding: “Not everything has to be about the end of democracy and not everything has to be 1800 words. You can impart lively, very useful information in short, sharp bites. Our ideal piece is sort of 400 words.”

The pair describe a staff populated by young reporters ready to move quickly and some veteran hands, like executive editor Hugh Dougherty or veteran Michael Daly. Keith Bonnici, an investor and consultant who worked with Sherwood on his previous venture, a youth-sports coaching app called Mojo Sports, is joining as president and chief operating officer.

And they acknowledge all has not been smooth sailing since they came aboard. “We are both learning a tremendous amount,” says Sherwood,”  who says the experience has been “humbling” in some ways. “Many of the ideas we came with have turned out to be completely wrong,” he admits. Coles says the two had envisioned hiring some “big voices,” only to discover “either their price was too rich or they weren’t going to move the needle in the way we thought they might.”

They aren’t alone. An increasing percentage of the media landscape is becoming driven by entrepreneurs, as traditional outlets under cost pressures shed experienced personnel and the ease of access to social media gives expert reporters and writers a chance to set up their own shops. One of the biggest stories on the media beat in recent days — the suspension of the political writer Olivia Nuzzi by New York Magazine due to what appears to be an inappropriate relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — was broken not by a legacy outlet, but by Status, a media-industry newsletter operated by Oliver Darcy, a recent departure from CNN.

With so many upstarts scrambling to gain traction, it’s likely that Sherwood and Coles will be just two of many new media leaders trying to recalibrate traditional media offerings.

Nonetheless, they two say they like the work. Both have rolled up their sleeves to do writing and reporting, with Sherwood holding forth in a German laundromat to help report a story about would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks.  “We love the business and we love journalism and we love this particular moment in politics and culture,”  says Sherwood. Now all they must do is make sure that journalism loves them back.