BuzzFeed has hired Isaac Fitzgerald, the former director of publicity of at McSweeney’s, to head up its new books section. Fitzgerald is also the co-founder of Pen & Ink and co-owner of The Rumpus.
Fitzgerald is relocating from San Francisco to New York and will begin in December, according to reports.
In an interview with Poynter.org, Fitzgerald said that the site will begin doing reviews, but would refrain from writing negative reviews. “Why waste breath talking smack about something?” he told Poynter.org. “You see it in so many old media-type places, the scathing takedown rip.”
Gawker critiqued the comment:
Publicity is a job where you try to help people become interested in books and feel positively toward them, so that they buy books and the books’ authors feel successful and everyone enjoys things very much. In some sense, it could be argued that the publicist is the best friend that books have. Now BuzzFeed will also be a good friend to books. This is very nice news.
Fitzgerald responded with a tweet:
Well I certainly never thought @Gawker would roll out the red carpet for me. Feeling more NYC already. http://t.co/mmb79nqJra
— Isaac Fitzgerald (@IsaacFitzgerald) November 7, 2013