BuzzFeed News Is Shutting Down

BuzzFeed is shutting down BuzzFeed News and laying off 15% of its employees, or about 180 people. CEO Jonah Peretti made the announcement in a memo on Thursday. Variety reports: Going forward, BuzzFeed will concentrate its news efforts in a single profitable news organization -- HuffPost, which it acquired from Verizon in 2020, per Peretti's memo. The company's flagship BuzzFeed.com site will remain in place. "While layoffs are occurring across nearly every division, we've determined that the company can no longer continue to fund BuzzFeed News as a standalone organization," Peretti wrote.

BuzzFeed News launched in 2012 under then-editor in chief Ben Smith. In the memo, Peretti said, "I made the decision to overinvest in BuzzFeed News because I love their work and mission so much. This made me slow to accept that the big platforms wouldn't provide the distribution or financial support required to support premium, free journalism purpose-built for social media." HuffPost is "a brand that is profitable with a highly engaged, loyal audience that is less dependent on social platforms," than BuzzFeed News, according to Peretti.

Peretti also wrote, "we will bring more innovation to clients in the form of creators, AI and cultural moments that can only happen across BuzzFeed, Complex, HuffPost, Tasty and First We Feast." According to a BuzzFeed spokesperson, no jobs are being replaced by AI. The company recently started using AI to assist in creating some content, including quizzes, and Peretti said the technology would become "part of our core business."

Buzzfeed has people?

[edi_guy]

I thought the whole enterprise was just an earlier generation of ChatGPT

Re: Good riddance!

[saloomy]

It is a circle of propaganda. One news outlet publishes an article off some random tweet espousing a chosen narrative, and other outlets site the first as a credible source. They take turns playing original source, which is what eroded all of their credibility among all but diehard faithful biased readers looking to validate their preconceived biases. So to Buzzfeed I say good riddance. Who is next? Vox?

That's no moon

[phantomfive]

Suddenly: the voice of a million voices crying out in relief.

Re:

[sysrammer]

I don't understand why this is funny.

But it is.

This explains why

[dicobalt]

Huffpost never got my attention.

Re:

[mkwan]

Are you referring to the Hulk Hogan lawsuit? That was Gawker, not Buzzfeed.

Buzzfeed published NEWS?

[Big Hairy Gorilla]

Who knew?

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

Buzzfeed News was actually somewhat respectable. It even broke big news stories occasionally.

But that's probably the issue. Everyone sees "Buzzfeed News" and what they think about is the cesspool known as "Buzzfeed".

Re: Buzzfeed published NEWS?

[RightwingNutjob]

If memory serves, the Ben Smith mentioned in TFA lost his spot on the masthead after doubling down and staking his reputation on some bullshit Mueller leak that Mueller's own people debunked...before Smith staked his reputation on it.

Clearly the outfit was something less than a news organization. Maybe an influence operation or something similar. And now they've outlived their usefulness.

Or perhaps as I speculated in another post, their dumbass reputation just couldn't ever be a moneymaker after the easy VC

Re:

[radarskiy]

The Pulitzer Prize Board knew.

Live by the sword, die by the rumor

[RightwingNutjob]

Seems like their niche of ragebait mixed with "idiots doing stupid shit on youtube" got filled with stronger competitors.

Or the public got tired of their shtick.

Or it's hard to gain an audience of people with money to attract advertisers when your business model is to attract retards with no money with dumb shit no adult takes seriously.

Ugh, Huffpost

[93 Escort Wagon]

They used to be good; but nowadays their "stories" are 1-2 paragraphs (at most) followed by several dozen embedded crap Twitter posts from random people making snarky comments.

Re: Ugh, Huffpost

[chill]

Used to be good? Huffington Post? When was that, I missed it. Was that before, during, or after they were known as the side boob network? Because, you know, all the photos of celebrity side boob making the front page.

Re:

[chas.williams]

TIL Huffpost is profitable or could be profitable. That was surprising news.

Oh, no!

[gosso920]

Anyway...

It was actually pretty good

[Dixie_Flatline]

I read a few great stories there. Serious journalism, good research, great interviews. The problem is that nobody in their right mind who knew of Buzzfeed before would go to them for news. Their big brand was a liability, not anything anyone would seek out. They should have named it literally anything else.

And...

[slipped_bit]

... nothing of value was lost.

Re:

[Woldscum]

... nothing of value was lost.

So sad I had to scroll down so far to find this.

Goodbye trash...

[ozzymodus12]

BuzzFeed didn't even employ actual journalists. It did mostly hit pieces and bait clicks. Occasionally, it would dabble into real stories by accident. They've been the standard for trash journalism for years. Goodbye and burn in hell.