As news organizations across the country continue to be in a pinch due their struggle to keep up with a shifting media landscape, the closure of a major left-leaning news company was announced on Thursday afternoon.

Buzzfeed, which was known for news with a left-wing slant as well as an entertainment section that included personality quizzes, announced that it would be closing its doors.

The company has been facing financial woes for years on end as it has been forced to slash its staff due to budget shortfalls after it fell out of favor with its younger, liberal audience that frequently switches between up and coming platforms.

In recent years, some argued that the company let its editorial standards dip as it ran with stories that had little evidentiary basis.

It was the first news outlet to run the Steele Dossier, which made many allegations that were either unproven or later discredited regarding former President Donald Trump’s alleged ties to the Russian government.

Some of the company’s employees will be retained at the Huffington Post, another major left-leaning news company.

The Daily Beast Reports–

BuzzFeed News is shutting down, the once-iconic media brand’s founder and CEO Jonah Peretti announced in a company-wide memo on Thursday.

“We are reducing our workforce by approximately 15% today across our Business, Content, Tech and Admin teams, and beginning the process of closing BuzzFeed News,” Peretti wrote in the email.

The CEO also told staff that if they had received the email, “you are not impacted by today’s changes.” Additionally, besides the shuttering of BuzzFeed News, Peretti said that the company’s CRO Edgar Hernandez and COO Christian Baesler had also decided to leave BuzzFeed. Both would be exiting within the next few weeks.

BuzzFeed News had long been on life-support. The company-wide layoffs and elimination of the news operation come just months after BuzzFeed had laid off 12 percent of its staff in a cost-cutting measure. That penny-pinching move, which Peretti said was necessary due to an “ongoing audience shift to vertical video,” came nine months after Peretti had bought out the majority of the BuzzFeed News staff and sacked the editor-in-chief.

 

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.


We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.