The Daily Beast Names Tracy Connor as Its Editor in Chief

The Daily Beast digital news site on Wednesday named Tracy Connor as its next top editor.

Ms. Connor, 54, will take over as editor in chief immediately, the company said in a statement. She has been acting in the role since the recent departure of Noah Shachtman, who left for the top job at Rolling Stone magazine.

A native New Yorker, Ms. Connor worked at the city’s tabloids, The New York Post and The Daily News, for more than a decade. She then moved to NBC News and spent time in its investigative unit, where she helped to lead an investigation into serial sexual abuse by the former gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar.

In 2018, she joined The Daily Beast as executive editor, working under Mr. Shachtman. She said in an interview that she came to The Daily Beast because it seemed “like an almost perfect blending of my tabloid background and also the passion that I had developed for deep digging.”

Ms. Connor will now lead all of the editorial strategy and functions of the publication’s newsroom.

“I really want to double down on investigations and impact,” she said, adding, “What we want to do is find the scandal before the scandal breaks.”

Ms. Connor said she also planned to expand The Daily Beast’s opinion section.

“We’re definitely known for our sharp political columns,” she said. “I’d like to expand that ‘voiciness’ into more columns on a broader array of topics, whether it’s culture and entertainment and lifestyle topics, and then also more columns that are pivoting right off national news that is happening outside of D.C.”

With a newsroom of 65, The Daily Beast has become known for its frequent scoops and scrappy tabloid style. The website was started in 2008 by Tina Brown, the former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor, and Barry Diller, the chairman of IAC, which owns The Daily Beast.

“I’m always most pleased to promote from within, and Tracy Connor is a fine example of that preference: talented, savvy and more than capable of leading the Beast,” Mr. Diller said in a statement.

Heather Dietrick, the chief executive of The Daily Beast, said in a statement that Ms. Connor had a “ferocious appetite for unearthing the biggest stories and an unwavering commitment to excellence.”

A spokeswoman for IAC said that the publication’s overall revenue was up more than 50 percent in the last quarter, compared with the same period in the previous year. She added that revenue from memberships, which provide additional content, had more than doubled year over year. The website had its highest traffic on record last month, she said.