One small victory. Happy April 20
>BuzzFeed is shutting down BuzzFeed News because it is not able to turn a profit, according to a memo CEO Jonah Peretti sent to company staff Thursday. The digital publisher is laying off 15% of its employees, or about 180 people, across BuzzFeed News and other divisions.
https://archive.is/I5VK2
The LA Times article is especially funny
>BuzzFeed News, which won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting in 2021, is shutting down, in another sign of the economic challenges facing digital media companies attempting to deliver serious journalism.
>“It is dizzying that they built this incredible institution — it consistently punched way above its weight — and then they just destroyed it within a heartbeat,” said one ex-BuzzFeed staffer who requested anonymity to speak candidly about their former employer.
>“I’m heartsick personally,” Smith told The Times. “I do think it marks the end of the marriage between news and social media.”
>The closure of Buzzfeed News comes amid a major retrenchment of once boisterous digital media upstarts, including Vice News and Vox Media.
>These outlets — which attracted huge investments from media giants like NBCUniversal and Walt Disney Co. — have failed to live up to their initial promise of replacing established sources of news.
>Insider, another digital outlet founded in the 2000s, on Thursday told employees that it would be cutting 10% of its workforce after investing heavily in its newsroom staff.
>Online news sites have also suffered because major social media companies, including Facebook, changed their algorithms, and have given less focus to news publishers. Facebook’s thinking is that its users would prefer to consume articles shared by friends.
https://archive.is/U0n0P