Ex-Guardian editor to head UK edition for BuzzFeed

It's a big get for BuzzFeed.

The New York-based website best known for its viral content has hired former Guardian editor Janine Gibson to head up its United Kingdom edition.

BuzzFeed has gone into the news business in recent years and now has 170 news staffers. It also is making an international push. Its UK edition, launched in 2013, has 40 staffers and more are on the way.

Gibson is best known as the editor who oversaw the Guardian's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of documents leaked by former National Security Adviser Edward Snowden. At the time she was head of the British newspaper's digital operations in the United States.

Gibson held a number of major editing positions at the Guardian and was thought to be a strong contender to succeed Alan Rusbridger as the paper's top editor after Rusbridger announced last December that he was stepping down after 20 years. But the job went to Katharine Viner. Gibson later left the paper.

Gibson also had a role in the melodrama that led to the ouster of New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson last year. Managing editor Dean Baquet was upset that Abramson had offered Gibson a co-managing editor position at the paper without consulting him.

BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith said in a statement that Gibson "is uniquely placed to lead a new kind of British news organization."

Gibson said she had been impressed by BuzzFeed for quite some time and was "thrilled at the opportunity to further BuzzFeed's reputation as a force for breaking news, insightful reporting, and very good jokes."