Bloomberg Media Group CEO Justin Smith and New York Times media columnist Ben Smith are joining forces to launch a new media company. Both men announced their departures from their respective jobs on Tuesday. “After 8 years at Bloomberg Media, and more than 25 years in quality journalism, I’ve decided to pursue a personal dream, and a market opportunity, to launch a new kind of global news media company that serves unbiased journalism to a truly global audience,” Justin Smith wrote in a tweet, shortly after the Wall Street Journal reported the news. Ben Smith, the Times’ media columnist, who most recently uncovered dodgy business practices at digital publication Ozy Media, announced his exit in his paper shortly after. While little is known about the new media venture yet, it will be bankrolled by former Atlantic owner David Bradley, the duo confirmed. Justin Smith’s ties to Atlantic predate his time at Bloomberg Media, where he worked as CEO since 2013. Prior to that he served as president of Atlantic Media, which owned namesake publication The Atlantic. At Bloomberg, Smith oversaw its vast media division, which includes its digital news division, the magazine Bloomberg Businessweek, Bloomberg Radio, and Bloomberg TV. For his part, Ben Smith joined the Times in 2020 after an eight-year stint as editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed. Previously he was a reporter at Politico. “There are 200 million people who are college educated, who read in English, but who no one is really treating like an audience, but who talk to each other and talk to us,” Ben Smith told the Times. “That’s who we see as our audience.”
