BuzzFeed News Closure Unites Journalists in Disgust: ‘The Hardworking Staffers Pay the Price, as Always’
Journalists are speaking out online after BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced Thursday that he will be shuttering BuzzFeed News in addition to rolling out 15% workforce layoffs across other verticals.
“Horrible: BuzzFeed News is shutting down,” tweeted Philip Lewis, senior editor at Huffington Post, a subsidiary of Buzzfeed. Lewis’ response is just one of the slew of reactions from journalists.
Horrible: BuzzFeed News is shutting down
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) April 20, 2023
The Pulitzer Prize-winning digital news site that started as an internet-culture blog grew to become just as well-known for hard-hitting news coverage and investigative reporting. Peretti made the announcement via a staff memo that the news vertical of BuzzFeed Inc. would be closing up shop.
“I made the decision to overinvest in BuzzFeed News because I love their work and mission so much,” Peretti said. “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.”
What really sucks is that the people whose bad decisions eventually killed BFN simply coast on, while the hardworking staffers pay the price, as always. But I know life’s not fair.
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) April 20, 2023
“What really sucks is that the people whose bad decisions eventually killed BFN simply coast on, while the hardworking staffers pay the price, as always,” wrote Rosie Gray, a former BuzzFeed journalist, who also shared Peretti’s memo. “But I know life’s not fair.”
“We will concentrate our news efforts in HuffPost, a brand that is profitable with a highly engaged, loyal audience that is less dependent on social platforms,” Peretti said in the memo.
“I could have managed these changes better,” Peretti went on. “Our job is to adapt, change, improve and perform despite the challenges in the world. We can and will do better.”
“There’s plenty of blame to go around in the C-suites of BuzzFeed and Insider, which are laying off journalists while dabbling with AI,” wrote Los Angeles Times reporter Matt Pearce. “But we are all playing a rigged game inside the platforms’ casino. Digital journalism has to be commercially rational.”
There’s plenty of blame to go around in the C-suites of BuzzFeed and Insider, which are laying off journalists while dabbling with AI.
But we are all playing a rigged game inside the platforms’ casino. Digital journalism has to be commercially rational. https://t.co/STYUJPX588— Matt Pearce
(@mattdpearce) April 20, 2023
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BuzzFeed News Shuttering Amid 15% Company-Wide Layoffs
Benjamin Freed, managing editor at State Scoop, tweeted that he believes the result of BuzzFeed News ending is tied to Peretti’s financial business moves.
Peretti will never admit it, but the cause of BuzzFeed News' demise is right there. It's a painfully familiar story in the news business: The CEO chased short-term capital gains, and when the very obvious bubble burst, journalists bore the brunt of the fallout. pic.twitter.com/h3uj92hwDf
— Benjamin Freed (@brfreed) April 20, 2023
Los Angeles Times managing editor Sara Yasin reminisced about her time at BuzzFeed News and shared her condolences with its now laid off staff.
I dreamt of working at @BuzzFeedNews the way a lot of you dreamt of a career at @nytimes. The time I spent there rarely ever felt like working because it was always fun, even when it was hard. I am devastated for the people losing their jobs and for our industry
— sara yasin (@sarayasin) April 20, 2023
BuzzFeed Inc.’s other brands, BuzzFeed.com, Complex Networks, Tasty and HuffPost, will continue on except for BuzzFeed News, TheWrap confirmed.