The move came as its parent company, BuzzFeed Inc., seeks further cost cuts:
BuzzFeed News is shutting down.
In an email to staff shared with NBC News, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said the move was part of a 15% workforce reduction across a number of teams.
"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," he wrote.
Peretti said he had "overinvest[ed] 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," he wrote.
He added that he had failed to "hold the company to higher standards for profitability" to give it a buffer for downturns.
Moving forward, BuzzFeed will have a lone news brand, HuffPost, which BuzzFeed acquired in 2020 and which Peretti said "is profitable, with a loyal direct front page audience."
[...] BuzzFeed News launched in earnest at the outset of 2012 after it named longtime New York City political reporter Ben Smith as its editor-in-chief. In 2021, the news organization won a Pulitzer Prize for a series exposing China's mass detention of Muslims. That same year, it was also named a Pulitzer finalist — the second time it had received the honor.
Later that year, BuzzFeed Inc. became a publicly traded company amid a global frenzy of reverse mergers, many of which have since lost significant value. In BuzzFeed's case, it never traded above its initial public offering price of about $10.
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Tuesday April 25, @05:36AM (1 child)
..because clickbait articles will now be with us forever...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26, @12:37AM
For profit news - what did you expect? It's prima facie conflict of interest, a feature not a bug of neoliberalism.
(Score: 2, Funny) by dwilson98052 on Tuesday April 25, @06:57AM (3 children)
Who else will trick me into clicking on scammy links?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25, @01:18PM
Don't worry. Someone else will fill that niche before they have even shut down their service.
(Score: 2) by https on Tuesday April 25, @04:26PM
That would be me [soylentnews.com]!
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday April 25, @04:43PM
With the advent of ChatGPT, everyone.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Funny) by Thexalon on Tuesday April 25, @10:48AM
1. Nobody cares.
2. Nothing of value was lost.
3. This was quite possibly generated by ChatGPT anyways.
4. If not, it was some poor sap getting paid a few pennies a word and has to churn out 20 of these today in order to make rent this month, so don't expect anything resembling accuracy.
5. But hey, look at our banner ads.
read more
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 25, @02:44PM (1 child)
Or is it shutting up?
I always wonder that same thing when I see that Windows is shutting down.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26, @07:11PM
So far this year, 1103 minors have been killed in US traffic accidents.
I'm wondering why this statistic is not heard on the evening news ?