BuzzFeed have announced the appointment of two new senior journalists on their UK news team, poached from the Independent and Politico.
Emily Dugan will take on the role of senior national reporter later this month after nine years on The Independent were she is currently chief reporter.
Politico’s Alex Spence will start work as a senior political correspondent in early February.
The two hires takes the total number of staff in Buzzfeed’s UK Newsroom to 40.
During her time at The Independent, Dugan has reported extensively from foreign hotspots including Afghanistan and South Sudan. She was shortlisted for the News Reporter of the Year award at the 2015 British Press Awards.
Speaking about Dugan’s appointment, Peter Heneghan, BuzzFeed’s head of communications for UK and Europe, said: “She has shown an amazing ability to find the human stories at the heart of huge news events and to find creative new ways of telling them and we’re really excited about her bringing those skills to BuzzFeed.”
Spence joins Buzzfeed from Politico, where he is the European media correspondent. Prior to this he was media editor at The Times, resigning in 2015 after he reported that The Sun would be dropping its Page Three topless models feature, only for the paper to bring it back for one day.
On Spence’s appointment, Heneghan said: “Alex was the first reporter Politico hired in London for its push into Europe. As its European media correspondent, he has built a reputation for forensically reported deep dives that are packed with juicy exclusive lines.”
The new hires follow the arrival of ex Huffington Post journalist Louise Ridley as news editor in December 2016, as the company attempts to establish its reputation as a provider of high-quality, investigative news.
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