BuzzFeed chief executive Jonah Peretti announced Thursday that BuzzFeed News will be shutting its door as the company moves to slash 15% of its workforce. All operations will be shut down by the end of this month.
“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,” BuzzFeed chief executive Jonah Peretti told staffers in a memo. He further admitted that 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.”
Also Read | What is Project Magnolia? McKinsey & Company plans to cut 2,000 jobs in one of its biggest layoffs
Buzz News won the Pulitzer Prize and after publishing the now-debunked Steele Dossier, became the envy of many legacy news organizations. Peretti said that he refused to “hold the company to higher standards for profitability” in order to give it a buffer for downturns.
BuzzFeed News staffers whose jobs will be impacted after the division shuts down are currently discussing their options with News Guild, the union which represents staffers at the company. Some staffers might consider finding roles at HuffPost, the digital news website acquired by BuzzFeed in 2020.
“HuffPost and BuzzFeed Dot Com have signaled that they will open a number of select roles for members of BuzzFeed News,” Peretti told employees. “These roles will be aligned with those divisions’ business goals and match the skills and strengths of many of BuzzFeed News’s editors and reporters.”
Peretti also explained why BuzzFeed News is the one getting the boot and HuffPost will continue to live on. “Moving forward, we will have a single news brand in HuffPost, which is profitable, with a loyal direct front page audience,” Peretti added.
