BuzzFeed News announced on Thursday that Karolina Waclawiak, its executive editor of culture, would become the next top editor.
In a memo to staff members, Samantha Henig, the interim editor in chief, said that Ms. Waclawiak was chosen after a search involving internal and external candidates.
“I personally was inspired by Karolina’s desire not just to lean into BuzzFeed News’s dominance as a trusted news source for millennial and Gen Z readers, but also to have fun doing it,” Ms. Henig wrote in the email, which was viewed by The New York Times.
Ms. Waclawiak joined BuzzFeed News in 2016, rising to lead its culture coverage and run news development for BuzzFeed Studios. She worked on two recent documentaries from the studio arm: “The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe” and “Once Upon a Time in Londongrad.” She was formerly a deputy editor at the literary magazine The Believer, and has written three novels.
She takes over the newsroom at BuzzFeed at a tough moment for the digital media company. Since BuzzFeed went public in December, shares have nose-dived more than 80 percent, trading on Thursday at less than $1.70. A group of about 90 former employees have filed mass arbitration claims, saying they were shortchanged by the company’s stock market debut.
BuzzFeed’s chief executive, Jonah Peretti, announced in March that the company would offer voluntary buyouts to shrink the news division, which last year won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the detention of Uyghur Muslims in China but has failed to turn a profit.
A number of prominent reporters have said they will take the buyout offer. The previous editor in chief, Mark Schoofs, announced in March that he was stepping down, and two other top editors, Tom Namako and Ariel Kaminer, have left the company.
