BuzzFeed News is shutting down

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NBC News

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.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/buzzfeed-news-shutting-down-rcna80656

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Daily KOS is always in financial difficulty as well.

[Tetrachloride]

2. Not much news. DU is better. i got better news from facebook

[Freethinker65]

3. Can't remember the last time BuzzFeed news wasn't some influencer/review clickbait.

And yes, sometimes I did enter the rabbit hole and even mindlessly enjoyed it.

[highplainsdem]

4. I wonder how much AI has to do with this.

[highplainsdem]

5. BuzzFed owns Huffington Post, and this article says they'll use that for news:

https://gizmodo.com/buzzfeed-news-shutting-down-layoffs-1850357443

Peretti said his company will be focusing its news efforts on HuffPost, recently acquired, which has proved to be more lucrative than BuzzFeed News, according to Peretti’s email: “Moving forward, we will have a single news brand in HuffPost, which is profitable, with a loyal direct front page audience.”

“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. The company recently began experimenting with having artificial intelligence write its viral quizzes.

BuzzFeed News’ shuttering comes on the same day as Insider announced it would lay off 10% of its employees, including unionized writers.

[LittleGirl]

6. Everything on Buzzfeed was

Acquired by other sites so there was nothing to see but repeated headlines you read elsewhere.
Might as well shut it down.

[Jilly_in_VA]

7. Scratch that from my feed

The last good thing I got from there, and I did share it here, was a LONG article on legal guardianship. It was really good, too. Sad to see it go. Daily Beast is getting worse as well. And I don't think I've shared anything from BBC in quite awhile, their page has shrunk so much.

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. Where will I go to find clickbait lists of celebrities I've never heard of? Nt

[LeftInTX]

9. Hee hee! That will still be there. Shutting down news

division. I enjoy the clickbait products lists on Buzzfeed

[Dontwa]

10. They were good

Will be missed.