One way to generate news during the ample down time at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions is to “frantically try to engineer a meeting” between Captain Morgan and Ted Sorenson.
Another way is to pair New York Times reporters and editors with Ben Smith and his BuzzFeed politics team and task them with “present[ing] a robust online video report during both conventions, including expanded live segments,” as the Times put it in its announcement of the collaboration today.
From the pairing, the Times gets “BuzzFeed’s energy and keen ear for how political stories play out in the social sphere,” per Times assistant managing editor Jim Roberts, and BuzzFeed gets “such a respected news organization as The New York Times, and one that understands and values online reporting,” said BuzzFeed’s Smith.
What will the rest of us get? That remains to be seen. It’ll be interesting to watch how this combination clicks (and tries to get the rest of us to, too).
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.