BuzzFeed News, we hardly knew ‘ye

"...the end of the marriage between social media and news."

That's Ben Smith, founding editor of Buzzfeed News and current Editor-In-Chief at Semafor, commenting on yesterday's announcement that BuzzFeed News is closing its doors.

The shutdown marks the end of an award-winning twelve-year run for the newsroom. In 2021, its journalists won a Pulitzer Prize for utilizing satellite imagery to report on the Chinese government’s detention of Muslims in Xinjiang. But the company’s CEO, Jonah Peretti, said yesterday the division was never able to make money.

• BuzzFeed will continue to publish some news under the HuffPost brand, which it acquired in late 2020. The newsroom employed about 60 people, some of whom will be offered roles elsewhere in the company.
• An additional 120 people are reportedly being let go as part of a broader cost-cutting effort at the company (BuzzFeed has ~1,200 employees in total).

📰📉 Zoom out: If the digital news industry's Thursday could be summed up in a song, it'd probably be "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter. On top of Buzzfeed News’ announcement, Insider said yesterday that it’ll be laying off about 10% of its staff (~950 employees).

And this seems to be part of a broader trend. NPR cut 10% of its staff last month, Vox laid off 7% of its team in January, and Vice is reportedly considering shutting down Vice World News in the coming weeks unless a sale can be made.