Tina Brown To Leave Daily Beast, Now Free To Ruin New Publication

Today we bid farewell -- or prepare to bid farewell, if "a source with direct knowledge" has given the straight dope to Buzzfeed -- to Tina Brown as editor of The Daily Beast, and maybe, who knows, to the Beast itself:

According to a source with direct knowledge of the situation, The Daily Beast parent company IAC owned by media mogul Barry Diller does not plan to renew Brown’s contract when it expires in January. The decision has been made for the two sides to part ways, said the source, but precise details of the separation are still being worked out.

Yr Doktor Zoom is not what you'd call a media insider, but he reads enough to know that Tina Brown has kind of a reputation for... well, shall we say, flashy crap over substance? Like those charming Newsweek covers of ragey Muslims and Zombie Princess Di? So what's next for the woman who is to media properties what the 9/11 hijackers were to office buildings?

We are guessing that despite the NewsBeast fiasco, she will continue to fail upwards. Buzzfeed says that she may get custody of the Beast's   Women in the World Summit "as part of a severance agreement," and she'll probably manage to find investors for yet another Tina Brown's Flashy Internet Concern with which she can continue to infotain us. After all, The Daily Beast served as the media training wheels for Meghan McCain, so who knows what aspiring political son or daughter might launch from the deck of Brown's next iceberg-bound vessel?

And what about her previous Internet Thing -- the only part of which we really liked was that title, which came from an Evelyn Waugh novel that we should probably read someday -- what will happen to The Daily Beast, which we heralded with a whole paragraph back in 2008?

As for the future of The Daily Beast website that Brown edits, no decision has been made. Included among the options IAC is considering are a sale, closure, or continuing to operate it under a new editor. According to the source, the latter option would require “looking at the business to see if it can be turned around.”

“The financials need to make some sense,” this source said.

Oh, Tina... we hardly knew ye. And yet, you just won't seem to go away.

[ Buzzfeed / Atlantic / Adweek / Image credit:  Jim Cooke at Gawker ]