BuzzFeed News to Shut Down as Company Makes Major Workforce Cuts

By Ashley Turner

BuzzFeed News is ceasing operations. On Thursday, BuzzFeed's CEO Jonah Peretti told staffers in a memo that the company he founded in 2006 would focus its news efforts on HuffPost, a brand with a highly engaged, loyal audience "that is less dependent on social platforms." Some BuzzFeed employees might find roles at HuffPost and BuzzFeed.com. In 2020, BuzzFeed purchased HuffPost from Verizon Media, Deadline reported. As part of the cutbacks, Peretti said BuzzFeed would reduce its workforce by 15% and begin discussing the matter with the NewsGuild. As Peretti outlined in his memo, per the outlet, BuzzFeed has experienced several challenges over the past few years, including "a pandemic, a fading SPAC market that yielded less capital, a tech recession, a tough economy, a declining stock market, a decelerating digital advertising market and ongoing audience and platform shifts." Peretti added, "Dealing with all of these obstacles at once is part of why we've needed to make the difficult decisions to eliminate more jobs and reduce spending." 

In addition to admitting that he could not manage these changes better as CEO, he also stated that the leadership team could have performed better despite these conditions. His letter said that BuzzFeed and Complex Networks, the lifestyle and entertainment company it acquired in 2021, should have been integrated faster and better. In addition, Peretti announced the departure of chief revenue officer Edgar Hernandez and chief operating officer Christian Baesler. Deadline noted that in response to the latest bad news for BuzzFeed, its stock plunged as much as 26 percent before recovering slightly to trade in the 85-cent range. When the shares went public in December 2021, dozens of employees filed a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of putting them through "Kafka-esque tribulations" in order to realize financial gains. On May 9, the company will report its first-quarter earnings.

The BuzzFeed brand was initially known for its pop culture articles and lists, known as "listicles," which were popular on social media sites. Under Ben Smith, who left Politico in 2011 to become BuzzFeed News' editor-in-chief, it developed a hard-news operation. With him at the helm, BuzzFeed News expanded its investigative reporting and international reporting and generated controversy, such as publishing the infamous "Steele dossier" in 2016, an assessment of Donald Trump written by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. The digital publication continued to earn recognition for serious journalism even after Smith left BuzzFeed for The New York Times in 2020. For reporting on the Chinese government's infrastructure for the mass detention of Muslims, BuzzFeed News won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021. Although BuzzFeed won a number of awards for its news media coverage, it went through a challenging 2022. Editor-in-chief Mark Schoofs left, and layoffs in December reduced its workforce by 12 percent.

0comments
Start the Conversation

of