Hi, I'm Kara Swisher, executive editor of Recode, and you're listening to Recode Media with Peter Kafka, powered by digital media.

Before we launch Recode Media as its own podcast, you may have heard Peter over at my podcast, Recode Decode.

Here's one of the fantastic interviews he did for Decode. Let's listen.

Recode Radio presents Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher, powered by digital media.

Hi, I'm Kara Swisher, executive editor of Recode, and you're listening to Recode Decode,

a podcast about tech and media's key players, big ideas, and how they're changing the world we live in.

This is our special weekly segment with host Peter Kafka,

Recode Senior Editor and Producer of Code Media Conference.

Joining Peter each week are some of his favorite movers and shakers in the media world.

This week, Peter talked to Shawnee Hilton, executive editor of News at BuzzFee,

a small little website you might have heard of.

Peter and Shawnee spoke about how she rose to a senior role at one of the biggest new media sites in the world just a few years out of college. Here's Peter. Thanks, Kara. I'm here with Shawnee Hilton, who is executive editor of BuzzFeed News, or executive editor of news at BuzzFeed or a title, it sounds like that. Executive editor, comma, that. And that means what at BuzzFeed?

Essentially means that I oversee our U.S. news operation.

So anything cool and newsy that comes out of BuzzFeed, you assigned, you edited, you wrote, you signed off on?

Some of it, yeah.

We're a pretty autonomous organization.

A lot of it is ground up, but I do kind of oversee some of our biggest projects and, you know, our day-to-day operations. So let's pull back even further. BuzzFeed is maybe the most important new digital publisher the last couple of years? I would say so. You would say so. And one of the things that BuzzFeed is most famous for is producing lots of new, interesting news stories. You're in charge of that. You've got a staff of 100 plus people? Yeah, around 150 total globally. That's amazing. And so, I mean, obviously you'd have to be in the business for, what, 20, 30 years to reach that position? Mm-hmm. How long have you been doing news? Well, I mean, it depends on how far back you want to go. Let's go post college.

Okay. reach that position. How long have you been doing news? Well, I mean, it depends on how far back you

want to go. Let's go post college. Okay. Post college? Like six years. Oh my God. Wow. So you went to

college where? I went to Howard University. So you must have graduated in the 2000s. And what did

you think you'd be doing after Howard? It's funny. I went, I got a

journalism degree and I went in thinking I would be in news and I left thinking I didn't want

...