Buzzfeed UK has appointed its first Scotland editor.
Hilary Wardle (pictured, credit: Matthew Tucker/BuzzFeed) started in the post yesterday, having previously been a freelance contributor to the website since 2013.
She will be based in Edinburgh, remotely from the main Buzzfeed UK office in London, and will be focusing on travel and lifestyle content.
Wardle, who has lived in Scotland since she was a teenager, said: “I want to showcase Scotland and especially to reach out to cities we’ve not reached before, like Aberdeen, and to the islands like the Orkneys.
"You have to focus on regions. You have to look at individual cities and what’s unique about them. It’s hard for a team in London to keep up with that side of things.”
Wardle's is the latest in a string of appointments by Buzzfeed.
In January, a series of high profile journalists joined the team: Former Sunday Times assistant editor and Insight Team journalist Heidi Blake joined as investigations editor, Patrick Strudwick was appointed editor covering lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender stories and Bim Adewunmi joined as culture editor from the Guardian.
Buzzfeed takes the number of editorial staff to 40, up from three when the operation was launched in 2013.
Luke Lewis, editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed UK, said Glasgow and Edinburgh are consistently in the top five cities for the website’s traffic.
He said: “Scotland is a sweet spot for obvious reasons. The independence referendum really blew up online, and there’s a lot of fun you can have with Scottish identity. There’s a real opportunity for a publisher like BuzzFeed.”
Lewis said he hopes Wardle is the first of many editors covering different parts of the UK. “We don’t want to be as London-centric as other publishers,” he said.
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