BuzzFeed News announced Thursday it would be shutting down operation.
BuzzFeed News’ CEO Jonah Peretti released a memo saying “we will concentrate our news efforts in HuffPost, a brand that is profitable with a highly engaged, loyal audience that is less dependent on social platforms.”
Peretti said he “made the decision to overinvest 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.”
“I regret that I didn’t hold the company to higher standards for profitability, to give us the buffer needed to manage through economic and industry downturns and avoid painful days like today,” Peretti wrote. “Please know that we exhausted many other cost saving measures to preserve as many jobs as possible. We are reducing budgets, open roles, travel and entertainment, and most other discretionary, non-revenue generating expenditures.”
BREAKING: BuzzFeed news is shutting down. @peretti’s memo: pic.twitter.com/k3vGnHOkcl
— Ben Mullin (@BenMullin) April 20, 2023
Peretti said the company would have “conversations with each division” about moving forward Monday. Peretti shouldered some of the blame, saying he could have handled changes such as the pandemic, the tech recession and other issues better. (RELATED: More Than 1,000 Media Jobs Were Cut In One Day. Is Facebook To Blame?)
BuzzFeed is also slashing “approximately 15%” of its workforce across its “business, content, tech and admin” teams as well.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated as information becomes available.