The Beast is an independent weekly newspaper and website published in Buffalo, New York, founded in 2002 by former the eXile publisher Matt Taibbi and Kevin McElwee. The current editor-in-chief is Allan Uthman. The politics generally run towards anti-big-government left-libertarianism and it frequently lampoons political figures, both local and national and from both major parties, rather harshly.
The Beast is probably best known for their annual The 50 Most Loathsome People list, published yearly in early January. The list frequently ends up copied to numerous blogs. The 2004 list became notable because it caught the attention of paranoid actor Tom Cruise and his equally obnoxious attorney Bertram Fields, who threatened to sue the paper because Cruise was prominently mentioned. The story broke on Court TV and in other mainstream media outlets like the Washington Times. The Beast, seeing an opportunity for free publicity, actively encouraged the lawsuit. Contrary to their standard practice, Cruise and Fields let the issue drop, most likely because they realized they had no case whatsoever, The Beast had no money and the controversy was really being used by Cruise to promote his bomb, War of the Worlds. Cruise ended up being more prominently listed in the 2005 list the following January, after his famous jumping the couch psychological meltdown on the Oprah Winfrey show.
The Beast's website can be found at www.buffalobeast.com