BuzzFeed biz editor departs amid changes

Jennifer Kingson, hired five months ago to be BuzzFeed’s business editor, has left the news organization amid changes to its business coverage.

Kingson joined BuzzFeed News in August after 13 years at The New York Times, replacing Tom Gara. She covered a lot of ground there, working on the national, science, and styles desks. She was an editor on the business desk, where she edited Andrew Ross Sorkin, Gretchen Morgenson and Ron Lieber, among others.

She also led the Times’ coverage of the Wells Fargo banking scandal.

BuzzFeed has since connected its U.S. tech and business desks into a single team called Tech and Business. Mat Honan, initially hired as tech editor, now oversees tech and business coverage, as well as science news.

The change comes from wanting to better serve its audience by reporting on the central stories of 2018, and recognizing that the ideas, people and money flowing from the tech industry are central to the global business story.

In addition, BuzzFeed laid off business reporter Matthew Zeitlin late last year.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.