Mahanta hired by Business Insider/Insider to be features editor

Nicholas Carlson, global editor in chief of Business Insider and Insider, sent out the following announcement on Tuesday afternoon:

Hello, Team!

I’m excited to announce that we’ve hired Siddhartha Mahanta to be Features Editor at Insider Inc.

For Business Insider, he’ll will help us publish more blockbusters like Julie Bort’s “THE TAKEDOWN OF TRAVIS KALANICK” and Hayley Peterson’s work on the true human cost of ‘free’ shipping.

For INSIDER, Sid is going to help us enhance our smart and fun coverage of politics, science, true crime, sports, and celebrity with more “holy shit!” profiles and narratives.

Sid comes from The Atlantic, where he’s a feature editor. Prior to that he was at Foreign Policy and Mother Jones. He’s written for NewYorker.com, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and Texas Monthly. He went to the University of Texas at Austin where he studied literature and film.

He tells us: “As the son of immigrants, born and raised far from where big-time journalism is done, it’s fair to say that I never imagined I’d get to do the sort of work I do. I’m anxious to get to a publication that’s interested in all of it: the future of Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the purpling of Texas, the fate of Syria, John Bolton’s mustache. I want to be part of a team that, for lack of a better way of putting it, wants to deliver both timely and deeply considered web journalism.”

Sid starts in April. Look out for a note from him shortly after that on how to pitch a feature.