Justin Smith, who has been the CEO of Bloomberg Media since 2013, stepped down from his position to pursue his ‘personal dream’ – start a global news organisation along with New York Times media columnist Ben Smith. The two announced their exits on Tuesday. 

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“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 tweeted. 

As per an email received by the Wall Street Journal, the two plan to launch a premium news business that is a ‘high-quality platform for the best journalists in the world’. 

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Meanwhile, Ben Smith, who will act as the editor in chief of the unnamed venture, said that they want to target “200 million people with college degrees, who read in English, who nobody is really thinking of as an audience,” he said in an interview with Reuters.

Just for the record, the two are not related. 

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Justin, prior to his stint with Bloomberg, was the president of Atlantic Media. During his tenure, he led Bloomberg in the world of digital news and pushed the company into streaming through its TicToc streaming offering. It was later relaunched as QuickTake. 

Bloomberg Media is set to replace Justin Smith with Scott Havens, Bloomberg Media’s chief growth officer, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a statement from Michael Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg LP. 

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Ben Smith was the editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed and a reporter at Politico prior to joining the Times in 2020. 

No other details on funding or staff have been revealed yet.