[3] In a 2015 interview, former editor-in-chief John Avlon described the Beast's editorial approach: "We seek out scoops, scandals, and stories about secret worlds; we love confronting bullies, bigots, and hypocrites.

[19] In an April 2018 interview, Avlon described the publication's political stance as "non-partisan but not neutral": "what that means is we're going to hit both sides where appropriate, but we're not going for mythic moral equivalence on every issue.

Specifically, reporters Asawin Suebsaeng (formerly of Mother Jones) and Lachlan Markay (formerly of The Heritage Foundation) were tasked with covering the first Trump administration.

[25] The site frequently creates encyclopedic landing pages on topical subjects such as President Obama's inauguration, the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, and the Iran uprising.

[26] In 2014, The Daily Beast became the majority on mobile and released an iOS app, which Nieman Lab described as "the dawn of the quantified news reader".

[28] Contributors to the publication include notable writers and political activists such as: In May 2017, Pulitzer Prize–winning national security reporter Spencer Ackerman left The Guardian and joined The Daily Beast.

[30][31][32][33] In June 2017, HuffPost senior political editor Sam Stein announced he was joining The Daily Beast in the same capacity.

[37] During Avlon's leadership from 2013 to 2018, The Daily Beast doubled its traffic to 1.1 million readers a day and won over 17 awards for journalistic excellence.

[40] Also in 2012 John Avlon won National Society of Newspaper Columnists' award for best online column in 2012 for The Daily Beast.

[43] Also that year, Michael Daly won with the National Society of Newspaper Columnists award in the category of Online, Blog, Multimedia – Over 100,000 Unique Visitors.

[59][60] Hines, a heterosexual married man, signed up for several gay and straight dating apps, including Tinder, Bumble and Grindr, and documented his experiences in the Olympic Village.

Criticism challenging the value of the piece continued,[66] and The Daily Beast eventually removed the article altogether and issued an apology.

[69] The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association stated "The reporting was unethical, extremely careless of individual privacy and potentially dangerous to the athletes".

[70] Vince Gonzales, professor of professional practice at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism wrote "I think this borders on journalistic malpractice".

[70] The president of GLAAD, Sarah Kate Ellis, wrote "How this reporter thought it was OK—or that somehow it was in the public's interest—to write about his deceitful encounters with these men reflects a complete lack of judgment and disregard for basic decency, not to mention the ethics of journalism".

"[71] In June 2019, The Daily Beast reporter Kevin Poulsen was accused of doxing Shawn Brooks, a 34-year-old Trump supporter living in the Bronx, when Poulsen revealed his identity for being the alleged creator and disseminator of a widely shared fake video, which showed American politician Nancy Pelosi speaking in a slurred manner.

[74] The Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald criticized The Daily Beast for revealing Brooks' identity, saying on Twitter that it was "repellent to unleash the resources of a major news outlet on an obscure, anonymous, powerless, quasi-unemployed citizen for the crime of trivially mocking the most powerful political leaders".

[73] In August 2021, The Daily Beast published an article criticizing Mayim Bialik's appointment as the new host of Jeopardy!, which described the Israel Defense Forces as "genocidal"; after human rights lawyers and members of the Jewish community objected, The Daily Beast removed the word and stated that it would review its editorial policy on the use of the term "genocide".