The Daily Beast’s new chief content officer Joanna Coles (CCO) reportedly urged her staff to publish a story about Barron Trump that her outlet could not verify, according to the Intelligencer.
A friend reportedly told Coles about an unconfirmed report that the 18-year-old Barron will attend New York University (NYU), though her gossip column team could not verify the report, according to the Intelligencer. After Coles pressed her team to write the story, she took her chances and wrote the report without a byline.
“We will see how it does. Let’s hope it’s true!” Connor reportedly shouted in the newsroom.
Coles has assigned stories that have angered her staff and have led to attempts to scrap the reporting. She reportedly assigned another un-bylined column titled “The Look-Alike Women in Donald Trump’s Orbit,” diving into “head-turning brunettes of a certain stripe.” She allegedly assigned a story to follow up on a rumor that Trump farted during the Bragg hush money trial, and told staff to reach out to gastroenterologists about whether he passed “stress farts or sleep farts,” the Intelligencer reported.
Joanna Coles has taken over Barry Diller’s Daily Beast with her business partner, Ben Sherwood, making for an uneasy marriage with the scoop machine. https://t.co/d1GLCjzrVd
— Intelligencer (@intelligencer) May 2, 2024
She also reportedly assigned a story titled “Is Protesting the New Sex for Gen Z?” to argue that young people are participating in the anti-Israel protests for the thrill rather than anger about the Israel-Gaza war, according to the Intelligencer. Staff argued the angle is inaccurate and insensitive.
Coles told Matt Fuller, the former Washington bureau chief and top politics editor, to leave his job early after he pushed back against her idea to cover who is paying for the campus encampments and learn whether there was an Astroturf” element to the protests, according to the Intelligencer. (RELATED: ‘It’s Devastating’: 25-Year-Old NPR Veteran Cops To All The Biased Coverage Outlet Pushed During Trump Years)
She also proposed writing a piece about the “five most obese members of Congress,” though the story was not assigned, according to the Intelligencer.
Multiple staffers said Coles has reportedly clashed with the newsroom, causing at least a dozen of them to search for jobs elsewhere or hope to be bought out, according to the Intelligencer. Two staffers reportedly left the outlet by the end of Coles’ second week.
She became in charge of the Beast’s editorial operations after Barry Diller, the senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group, announced a partnership with Coles and Ben Sherwood, according to the Intelligencer. Sherwood became chief executive and publisher as a result of the partnership.
One staffer alleged Coles angered the newsroom on her first day by implementing a “warped version” of the outlet, according to Intelligencer.
“They were coming in here to install some warped vision of the Daily Beast that is not what we do,” said an unnamed Daily Beast veteran. “Her version of news is trend pieces and listicles. On their first day, they delivered their speech and they lost the newsroom almost immediately.”
“If I survive and stay, do I work for the editor-in-chief or Joanna?” another staffer reportedly said. “Everyone who grew up in a newsroom is confused by what a creative director does.”
Staff have reportedly been crying behind closed doors and have feared possible layoffs since her takeover, according to the outlet. Some are reportedly divided between wanting to exit the outlet and those wanting to adapt to the new regime.
“The big question is, what’s going to happen to the journalism?” one Daily Beast staffer reportedly said. “Everybody that’s ever worked for the Daily Beast is down to do the news with a sense of fun and a subversive feeling. Those people are also stone-cold reporters and that’s what they love to do, and that’s what has differentiated the Beast.”
The Daily Beast did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.