BuzzFeed announced Thursday that it was shutting its news division as part of cost-saving measures. The company said the move is part of the process of reducing staff which is being brought down by 15 per cent. The shutting down of the newsroom signals the end of one of the most notable news websites of the internet era.
“We are reducing our workforce by approximately 15 per cent today… and beginning the process of closing BuzzFeed News,” chief executive Jonah Peretti wrote in an email sent to the staff.
“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.
Buzzfeed said that it was facing certain challenges, including a recession in the tech sector and the struggling stock market. CEO Peretti admitted that he was partly at fault for the closure.
Peretti acknowledged that since he loved the work and mission of Buzzfeed News, he had “overinvested” in it. “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 in the memo.
BuzzFeed shares fell more than 20 per cent on Wall Street following the news.
Peretti added that the company now plans to concentrate its news output on its HuffPost website.
The coronavirus pandemic, less capital, a decelerating digital advertising market and “ongoing audience and platform shifts” were the other reasons Peretti cited for the decision.
“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,” he said.
Peretti conceded that he could have reacted better to the challenges.
“I also want to be clear: I could have managed these changes better as the CEO of this company and our leadership team could have performed better despite these circumstances,” he wrote.
BuzzFeed is an American digital company that was created in 2006. It primarily became popular for its lists and quizzes. In late 2011, it founded BuzzFeed News which went on to win a number of awards.
(With inputs from agencies)
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