After four years building The Atlantic’s widely read blog the Dish, Andrew Sullivan announced yesterday that he will be moving to Tina Brown’s Daily Beast-Newsweek hybrid in April. Poof, like that, Brown just bought herself 1.2 million unique monthly visitors. “You don’t even have to change your bookmark,” says Sullivan, who assured readers:
We remain committed to the same principles from the very beginning: in no-one’s ideological grip, in search of the truth through data and open, honest debate, in love with the new media’s variety and immediacy, committed to accountability and empiricism and resistant to any single category of subject or form.
Sullivan’s departure marks the biggest get for Brown since she lured away Howard Kurtz and Robin Givhan from the Washington Post last year, although there have been a steady stream of new hires in between. It’s an equally big blow to the TheAtlantic.com, considering that the Dish accounts for about a quarter of its monthly unique visitors, which reached 4.8 million last October. In addition to moving the Dish to the Daily Beast’s new channel, Sullivan will also contribute to the print side via Newsweek.
In a blog post celebrating the news, Brown said, “Andrew almost single-handedly defined the political blog and has been refining it as a form of journalism in real time nearly every day for the past decade,” making sure to tout those 1.2 million uniques. Brown also added, ““A rarity, he is willing to admit mistakes and change positions (sometimes radically) in the face of new evidence,”
Looks like Sidney Harman and Barry Diller still have plenty of money to burn even after Newsweek’s recent buyout offers.
Andrew Sullivan Joins ‘Daily Beast’ and ‘Newsweek’ [Media Decoder/NYT]
Home News [Andrew Sullivan/Dish]
Andrew Sullivan Joins The Daily Beast![Tina Brown/Daily Beast]
