Mehdi Hasan joins The Huffington Post UK as the site's Political Director
Mehdi Hasan joins The Huffington Post UK as the site's Political Director
London, 21 May 2012 The Huffington Post UK announced today the appointment of Mehdi Hasan as its first Political Director.
Hasan currently works at the New Statesman as Senior Editor (Politics), and has established himself as one of the leading political commentators in Britain. He was listed as the UK's number two blogger in Total Politics magazine's annual list of "top 50 media bloggers" in 2011. Last week, Portland PR/Tweetminster named him the second most influential British journalist on Twitter. Starting in July 2012, he will host the Al Jazeera talk show series, The Cafe.
A seasoned news and current affairs journalist, Hasan joined the New Statesman in 2009, having spent nearly two years at Channel 4 as editor for news and current affairs. Prior to Channel 4 he worked on Sky's breakfast show Sunrise, the BBC's Politics Show and The Jonathan Dimbleby Programme on ITV. He has also been a guest columnist in The Guardian, The Times and The Independent newspapers and is the co-author of 'Ed: The Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader".
Hasan joins The Huffington Post UK as the site goes from strength to strength, growing nearly 50% since it launched in July 2011 and recently recording over five million global Unique Visitors (comScore). The award-winning site regularly features blogs from voices on all sides of the political spectrum including David Cameron, Jeremy Hunt, Ed Miliband, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage, Caroline Lucas and Jenny Jones.
The politics channel - currently the fourth biggest political website in the UK - has broken a number of exclusive stories in its short existence, including the first account of Michael Gove's office using personal email accounts to lobby schools. Hasan is set to take charge of the HuffPost UK's politics team, which includes political editor Chris Wimpress and reporter Ned Simons. He will report into the Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post UK, Carla Buzasi.
Carla said: "I'm delighted to welcome Mehdi to HuffPost UK. A talented and passionate writer, he will make a fantastic director for our political team. Politics drills down into the minutia of everyone's day-to-day lives and with so much happening at both a national and global level, it couldn't be a better time to expand our team and the breadth of reports, news and blogs we offer to our growing audience."
Mehdi Hasan added: "It is a pleasure and a privilege to be tasked with boosting and expanding the HuffPost UK's coverage of politics in Westminster and beyond. The Huffington Post is reinventing and redefining journalism, especially political journalism, across the globe and I'm delighted to be the newest member of a dynamic, award-winning team."
Press contact: John Nolan + 44 207 492 1203/07779329187
The Huffington Post UK part of AOL (UK) Ltd, launched in July 2011 is a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community and digital information. The site combines journalism, technology, engagement, and video to reach a global audience on every platform. The Huffington Post UK has over 3,000 bloggers -- from politicians and celebrities to academics and policy experts -- who contribute in real-time on a wide-range of topics making news today. Among them are Tony Blair, David Cameron, Ricky Gervais, Noel Gallagher, Kelly Rowland, Madonna, Alec Baldwin, Scarlett Johansson, Andy Murray, Bill Gates and George Clooney.
