Edward Felsenthal tames Web ‘Wild West’ for readers as news site’s editor

Feature story for the Lifestyle section of The Commercial Appeal

November 8, 2009

The World Wide Web, with its seemingly unlimited information and eternal reach, is a beast. For the average surfer, any attempt to keep up with it all — every news stream and nugget of gossip — is mere folly.

It is native Memphian Edward Felsenthal’s job as executive editor of The Daily Beast to rein that monster in and make it manageable, even useful, for readers on the year-old site at thedailybeast.com.

As Web site co-founder Tina Brown put it, “the Internet is the Wild West, in a way, and would become feral if there were no circus trainer to manage it.”

To that end, she hired Felsenthal to work with his team collecting news from around the world and throughout cyberspace to aggregate under one governable and easily-traversed URL.

“There are a lot of assets you can grow, but time isn’t one of them,” the 43-year-old Felsenthal said. “We’re giving busy people a quick and engaging fix on the day’s happenings.” … (read more)