National political reporter Peter Hamby is leaving CNN to join Snapchat, the Southern California messaging app startup.
Hamby leaves the television network, where he earned the reputation as one of its best political reporters, to become Head of News for Snapchat, as Politico reported Monday. The move signals Snapchat s growing influence beyond Silicon Valley tech — not unlike Uber s hire of ex-Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to run the company s lobbying and strategy efforts — and its expansion beyond the original messaging application that made the startup popular with teens.
Hamby will work on Snapchat s new feature called Snapchat Discover, a feature for media organizations like CNN, ESPN and National Geographic to share news stories and updates.
According to Politico: Hamby will be tasked with bringing credible news content to a social-facing organization that has pull with young audiences and hopes to broaden its appeal.
Hamby will remain a CNN contributor through 2016.
Hamby has been an avid adopter of social media and analyst of the growing medium, particularly in its application to covering news. As a Harvard University fellow, he wrote, Did Twitter Kill the Boys on the Bus? Searching for a better way to cover a campaign, which details how social media has changed the art of covering political campaigns.
Snapchat is one of the highest-valued and fastest-growing VC-backed companies in the world. It has raised $815 million from investors and has a market value of an estimated $15 billion, according to Dow Jones data, making it the fourth-highest valued venture-backed company in the world.
