Paradigm Shift Winner:  Tina Brown

April 6, 2009

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After 24 years in print journalism, Tina Brown shifted her career to the digital world last year, launching TheDailyBeast.com with a fresh approach to consuming news on the web.  “I was ready to jump into something really creative,” she says, “and I feel passionately that this is the future of journalism.”

After editing Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, and writing the 2007 best-seller The Diana Chronicles, the London-born journalist first viewed her new site as “an interesting foray” into digital. Then she recognized the powerful impact of combining a clear editorial vision with timely original content in areas as diverse as politics, business, culture, fashion and entertainment.

Today, TheDailyBeast.com offers a speedy, smart edit of the web, like a good friend who hears about the best stuff and forwards it to you with a twist. “It allows you to lead the conversation, rather than simply follow it,” adds Brown, who writes a blog and whose personality permeates the site.

Named after the newspaper in Scoop, Evelyn Waugh’s satire of London’s Fleet Street,
TheDailyBeast.com has attracted contributors like satirist Christopher Buckley, historian Sean Wilentz, Project Runway’s Laura Bennett and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, In the first month after its October 2008 launch, The Daily Beast attracted more than 2 million monthly unique visitors with more than 10 million page views.

Promising that her site will continue to evolve, Brown notes that the creative opportunities online are enormous – for journalists, marketers and brands. “Even in an economically stressed market, this is a place where brands can be inventive and innovative in a way they haven’t done before. There will always be print, radio and TV, but things are really moving online. Brands need to have a distinctive online voice and presence – otherwise they’ve missing a great deal of the action.”

For more Changing the Game Awards Winners:

Paradigm Shift Winner: Tina Sharkey
Paradigm Shift Winner: Esther "E.T." Franklin
Paradigm Shift Winner: Anne Bologna
Quantum Leap Winner: Nancy Smith
Brainwave Winner: Sue Bostrom
No Apologies Winner: Dr. Jane McGonigal