Welcome, Mike Shields

At DIGIDAY we’re building a new type of vertical media company. We want to be about insight and analysis rather than quick hits geared toward page views. Getting the right people as authorities in digital media is key to making this happen.

That’s why I’m very happy to welcome Mike Shields as our new senior editor for video and publishing. Mike and I worked side by side over six years when I was digital editor at Adweek and he was my counterpart at Mediaweek. He started at Mediaweek about before I began at Adweek. Over the years, I’ve appreciated Mike’s deep insights about the industry, honed by his time at Mediaweek as well as Mediapost. He has great instincts and years of knowledge, backed up by his own time as a media planner, which are unique. We want to bring in top-level people who can be leaders. Mike’s that person.

Mike is going to help us launch the DIGIDAY: VIDEO section and newsletter. The focus will be the messy world of video, where TV collides with the web. He’s the perfect person to step back and identify the key issues to this growing industry, from the future of Hulu to whether branded entertainment will pay off. He’ll also lead our coverage of the publishing industry and the challenges it faces to adjust from an analog world to digital. In particular, we’re interested in those like The HuffingtonPost, Gawker and others that are building new models — and the incumbents at Conde Nast, Time and elsewhere that are reinventing on the fly.

Mike starts at DIGIDAY May 2. He can be reached via email and followed on Twitter @digitalshields.