WSJ News Exclusive | Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith Steps Down to Found News Startup

Mr. Smith has recruited Ben Smith, who before his stint at the New York Times was editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, to be the company’s editor in chief, according to a person familiar with the matter. “I’m so excited about this,” Ben Smith said on Twitter Tuesday. The New York Times previously reported Ben Smith was leaving the company to join Justin Smith’s news startup.

In an interview, Ben Smith said that he has been in talks to join Justin Smith’s startup for more than a month. He said he thinks there is a large appetite for reporting that is at odds with prevailing opinions shared on social media.

“I think that there’s a big audience that wants journalism that respects their intelligence,” Ben Smith said. Asked about the differences between the startup and his current employer, he said: “The New York Times has a 150-year head-start on us.”

Ben Smith said he would be a shareholder of the new company. He said the startup would seek to tap into the rising power of individual journalists to build audiences on a variety of platforms.

“There’s been a change in the relationship between journalists and institutions in the same way there’s been a change in the relationship between talent and institutions in the entertainment industry,” Ben Smith said. He said he didn’t know when his last day at the New York Times would be.

It couldn’t be learned how many journalists Justin Smith is looking to recruit for his new venture or how much money he plans to raise. Justin Smith declined to be interviewed for this article.

Michael Bloomberg, the founder of financial-data colossus Bloomberg LP, said in a statement that Scott Havens, Bloomberg Media’s chief growth officer and global head of strategic partnerships, would become the division’s new CEO. Justin Smith will remain at Bloomberg as an adviser in the coming months to assist with the transition.

“Across his tenure, Justin and his team delivered exceptional results powered by product innovations, with 2021 representing the high-water mark in terms of Bloomberg Media’s historical performance,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

Since Justin Smith joined in 2013, Bloomberg Media has grown to include initiatives including its New Economy Forum events business and its Quick Take video-streaming network. Bloomberg Media also began selling digital subscriptions to Bloomberg News and invested in coverage areas such as climate change and politics. Mr. Havens is the architect of Bloomberg Media’s paywall strategy, which has generated more than 350,000 subscribers who pay about $400 annually, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Not including its media division, Bloomberg LP generated more than $11 billion of revenue in 2020, according to Burton-Taylor International Consulting, a research firm that tracks financial-data companies. Much of Bloomberg’s revenue comes from its data-terminal business.

Justin Smith, 52, discussed the idea of a new media venture months ago with David Bradley, the chairman emeritus of the Atlantic and Mr. Smith’s former boss, Mr. Bradley said in an interview. Justin Smith is considering many ways to generate revenue at the new company, including selling digital subscriptions and advertising, as well as events, Mr. Bradley said. The venture, which is being developed under the working title “Project Coda,” is expected to feature platforms including digital publishing, email newsletters, podcasts and digital video, Mr. Bradley said.

Mr. Bradley said Justin Smith is planning to raise significant funding for the venture and Mr. Bradley would likely invest if asked.

“He’s always talked about a market of 200 million college-educated, English-speaking professionals throughout the world,” Mr. Bradley said of Justin Smith. “And the big bet he’s making is that they’re more like each other than their individual countrymen.”

The international focus of the new venture is familiar territory for Justin Smith, a former State Department employee who grew up in Paris before joining the International Herald Tribune, a newspaper that was jointly owned by the New York Times and the Washington Post during Mr. Smith’s tenure.

Justin Smith joined Bloomberg from Atlantic Media, where he steered the Atlantic magazine toward profitability, pushed it further into digital publishing and launched the business site Quartz. Before joining the Atlantic in 2007, Mr. Smith started the U.S. edition of The Week magazine and founded Breaking Media, a portfolio of websites that includes Above the Law and Dealbreaker.

Before joining BuzzFeed News, Ben Smith was an employee of Washington, D.C., news outlet Politico, where he covered the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Mr. Smith was an early adopter of news blogging and embraced posting hourly updates on New York politics when he was a reporter for the New York Observer.

Write to Benjamin Mullin at Benjamin.Mullin@wsj.com