It looks like there’s a surprising new player in the journalism game. Viral content aggregator BuzzFeed has just hired Politico senior writer Ben Smith as its new editor-in-chief.

When I first read BuzzFeed was looking to undergo a major editorial expansion, I assumed they’d just be taking their animal slideshows to the next level. After all, BuzzFeed’s editorial channels are lol, cute, win, fail, omg, geeky, trashy, and wtf? Snagging Jezebel’s Whitney Jefferson and Gawker’s Matt Cherette seemed like logical fits for those channels, but hiring Smith indicates they’re looking to go in a more serious direction.

“Social media is what moves a story,” Mr. Smith said in the announcement. “BuzzFeed is the best in the world at distributing content on social sites, and it is a tremendous opportunity to join BuzzFeed—and its millions of reader—to build a new model for high-quality reporting.”

It’s an interesting move for BuzzFeed. Newspapers understand reporting but are trying to learn how to use social media. BuzzFeed knows how to use social media, and they’re going to try learning how to report. They have an audience, and some of their more serious editorial content—like the “45 Most Powerful Photos of 2011”—has gone viral in a big way. But do BuzzFeed visitors want original, high-quality reporting? And will it be worth the cost of building a true editorial department? Time will tell.