Buzzfeed has announced layoffs that affect the entire news division of their company, effectively shutting down Buzzfeed News. This comes after years of rumors of their demise. There was also, of course, the bungling of coverage when it came to the Steele Dossier. A former editor at Buzzfeed knew the story was full of errors and probably fake, but they published it anyway. Investors had been calling for Buzzfeed to simply move away from news completely. CEO and co-founder Jonah Peretti said the move was part of a 15% workforce reduction. HuffPost acquired Buzzfeed in 2020 and, as a result, all of Buzzfeed’s news entities will be shifted to HuffPost. No actual Buzzfeed employees will work in the news sector anymore.
SOURCES:
BuzzFeed News to shut down – YouTube
BuzzFeed shutters news unit, cuts 15% of staff | Reuters
BuzzFeed News: Company dismantles newsroom amid layoffs : NPR
BuzzFeed News is shutting down as part of company-wide layoffs
Buzzfeed News is shutting down – The Washington Post
BuzzFeed Lays Off 15% of Staff, Shuts Down News Division – The New York Times
BuzzFeed News, which famously published Steele dossier, shutting down as company slashes headcount | Fox News
Paul Sperry on Twitter: “BREAKING: Ex-Buzzfeed editor Ben Smith now admits he knew at the time he published, in full, the fake Russia dossier that it contained “clear errors” — in fact, one of his editors, Miriam Elder, warned “It is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors.” He publ’d anyway” / Twitter
