BuzzFeed to Cut 15% of Its Workforce
wsj.com
wsj.com
It's worth noting that other journalism companies have announced layoffs today with Gannett (https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2019/gannett-lays-off-...) and Verizon/Yahoo/Oath (https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/23/tech/verizon-media-layoffs/in...). Tough day for the industry. :(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
Frankly, the pulizter, oscar or any of these prizes are meaningless to me since it is apparent that they are part advertisements and part agenda pushing and any objective measure of achievement. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Or you can just go "nuh uh". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/business/media/buzzfeed-t...
As far as “tough day on the industry,” perhaps if the industry gave themselves a strong look in the mirror, they’d figure out why. The NY Times is doing pretty well, as is Reuters. It seems that perhaps the youngsters these days are interested more than listicles and might actually care about legitimate news?
What of the thousands whose lives are destroyed by shoddy journalism who aren't famous enough to even be recalled? I sincerely hope all of these yellow journalism outfits go out of business. It won't happen, but one can hope.
I mean, I'm sure they do also sometimes produce journalistic content, and it might be of great quality when they do.
Buzzfeed News current top articles:
Why Bryan Singer’s Latest Scandal May Not Affect Rami Malek’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” Oscar Campaign
This Photographer Captures The Emotional Final Moments Between Pets And Their Owners
Climate Change Is A Top Priority For The New Crop Of Governors — Even One Republican
A Man Allegedly Harassed Parkland Victims' Families On Instagram By Posing As The Shooter
A Woman Mistakenly Showed Up For Her Interview With Microsoft A Month Early. Her Hilarious Exchange With The Company Has Gone Viral.
Here are some examples from buzzfeed news:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/poison-in-the-system
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/how-apps-t...
I think Buzzfeed news should rebrand itself so people stop getting the two confused
The SCO's statement was _much_ narrower in scope than that.
Posting it with some false statement about it being the clear truth or whatever would be bad, but it's sort of hilarious to point to the NYT being chickenshit about it as some sort of evidence that Buzzfeed went off the rails by posting it.
Calling it the 'uncorroborated Steele dossier' is a talking point that has been proven to be a lie over and over. It seems that Buzzfeed New's publishing about the dossier is literally the type of 'real journalism' and 'legitimate news' that you're talking about because it has led to multiple investigations of some of the most influential people in the United States and has led to multiple indictments and guilty pleas, including the former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States. I haven't seen many '10 surprise diet secrets' articles doing the same. Have you?
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/12/an-updated-lo...
What source are you using to get "almost entirely corroborated"?
Have any of the guilty pleas corresponded to a specific claim from Steele? My understanding is, few if any. For what remains of "almost entirely" the whole dossier, "corroborated" in your book seems to mean "not worth bringing before a court of law, even after 2+ years of highly empowered investigation".
> No parts of it have been proven incorrect so far. Do you have any evidence that any parts of it have been shot down as not factual?
Russell has got an orbiting teacup to sell you.
No, Peter Carr said “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the special counsel’s office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony are not accurate.”
Which is a long, long way from "false".
No it isn't.
> "BuzzFeed’s description... are not accurate"
That is literally saying that their reports were false.
Then why didn't he say "false"? Why did he choose the specific "not accurate"?
They didn’t even cover the racist stuff said against the kids. Just some fluff about white supremacy, and MAGA hat being akin to KKK. All the headlines were inflamatory racial tensions inciting and all the corrections were STILL misleading and headlines seeming the kids were wrong. I’m talking about NYtimes, cnn, msnbc, not just the buzzfeed rags.
And then they pull up a picture from 4 years ago that’s misleading and not at all related to the kids. Get called out for fake news, and then they push another fake narrative from an out of context video and that turns out that the kid isn’t even from the school. Then finally another fake narrative about some kid not allowed to speak because he’s gay, turned out fake.
The journalists on twitter wishing for death to the kid based off a smirking clip and no rebuke for the actual racists are terrible human beings who themselves are racist. I unsubscribed from the NYTimes over this. Fox News during peak birther conspiracy wasn’t a 1/10th of this ridiculousness. Legit racists run these companies and legit racist are employed.
Oh and get this, just saw on Facebook my High School History teacher posted a bunch of basketball players holding up the “3 point shot” sign arguing how the school is racist because apparently an “ok” sign is code for white supremacy when literally every nba player makes it after a shot. That post has 35 likes. It’s like our collective IQ dropped 30 points in 2016. There’s a certain rationality you expect when you have a discussion with someone that seems to have completely dissipated into emotional tribalism.
The main premise of your argument is that the birther situation is racist and a big deal. In my post that’s what I clearly stated. The most racist and stupidest thing I’d seen journalists do in my lifetime was the Obama birther BS supported by Fox News and I commented that even that was 1/10th of this Covington story. They were calls for doxing minors liked hundreds of thousands of times by popular celebrities and journalists based on an innocuous clip and 10,000 plus death threats. Likely hundreds of thousands of people like you feeling no sympathy for teenagers getting death threats wearing MAGA hats and completely ignoring the blatant racism against them. The difference between us 2 is that I condemn the racism against Obama and the racism against these kids and I do feel pity for the other side. You’re quite off the deep end if you don’t.
I’m sure this individual was a very bright person pre 2016, but the collective 30 point iq drop seems to have had an unequal effect, harming some more than others as clearly demonstrated here.
Today we had a white man kill a black man allegedly due to wanting to start a race war (I didn’t double check and media lies like crazy so might be misleading, but let’s assume it’s true). You have Breitbart and other far right rags basically baiting this. Inflaming racial tensions like crazy. Against blacks, Hispanics, and Asians via crime, illegal immigration, and h1b abuse. They take 3 legit problems and tie racial tensions to them to cause division and hatred.
The left which went off the deep end after Trump are doing the same thing demonizing white people, men, and the wealthy from legitimate problems of race, violence, and income inequality. You take these already serious problems and tie race divisions to them and you get the fringes to grow larger and the extremists to increase in number. More and more will do extremist things. I mean you have a poster here that doesn’t care about kids getting death threats and tries to defend it by mentioning unrelated issues and HN is way critical thinking than the average person.
There is no media or journalists, just propaganda and propagandaists.
I think Twitter is a huge problem that has really inflamed this.
Do not do this on HN.
You can't differentiate between some twitter trolls doxing, to a major party platform working overtime to de-legitimize the first black President hand in hand with the biggest news channel in America. Are you this naive ? And the fact that our current President was the lead cheerleader of this effort. Should I point out the hundreds and thousands of stories that conservative media and politicians commented about Michelle Obama's looks. Should I point out about the massive systemic effort that conservative states create to disenfranchise minority voters ? Trump and MAGA is this whole movement in steroids. It is part of an overall effort to turn back the clock of progress in America. And you think that is 1/10th of some new story that people will forget in 2 weeks. Are you kidding me ?
That's just one point. Most of the other points you made can be equally refuted or are just ridiculous - "dog whistles," come on. That's code for "they didn't say anything bad but I'm going to interpret bad intentions because I don't like them."
I don't like the guy but I hate the lies and misinformation about him more. Not because they're damaging to Trump but because they're harming our democracy itself.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/15/opinion/leonh...
I don't think the way forward is to claim half the country is racist. Some of the Trump supporters are, but I feel like it's an easy/unfair explanation for why Trump was elected.
It's been talked to death, but Democrats made a lot of mistakes in 2016, and should look inward to try and fix things before 2020. I feel like the things they are focusing on are just making the division worse, and alienating voters they could win over.
Do you seriously not understand the point of that statement being made to people wearing MAGA hats? Notice I said understand, not agree with. Because labeling statements that are designed to use the absurdity of the MAGA's hatters position on various topics as a rhetorical tool against themselves as "racist" in order to fabricate some sort of "gotchya" talking point tells me you don't.
>I unsubscribed from the NYTimes over this.
Spare me.
Software engineers are not in a profession that is explicitly designed around seeking the truth.
Passion is also a poor substitute for knowledge. Gell-Mann Amnesia is still as true as ever too. The entire profession has an undeserved reputation of accuracy and impartiality, and now they're eagerly self-destructing what remains of it.
Most of all, they always stay within the same broad lines. As I saw someone observe recently... If the French gilets jaunes were happening in a South American country, would the coverage be remotely the same? When it comes time to beat the American war drum, will the result be any different from the last couple of times?
The envy of tech, and the associated aspersions are also highly misplaced. Nobody forced the press to embed five dozen trackers on every page and chase clickbait with informational junkfood. Nobody forced them to give up their autonomy to social media, instead of building their own infrastructure. The people whose self image put them several rungs above those icky nerds are still inappropriately bitter about that inversion of status, for sure.
To me, the model for 21st century journalism seems obvious: wikipedia, except not written by the obsessed and the mentally ill. Give me an ever-updating impartial dossier on each major topic and conflict, sorting the wheat from the chaff, and providing a timeline of key events with deeper elaborations one click away.
If the profession matched its self image, they'd have succeeded at doing something like that, instead of racing buzzfeed to the bottom.
Personally I'm really waiting for the rest of that 85% to go.
Last I checked the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic were all still in print, publishing good reliable content.
In an ideal world, there would be a requirement for an organization that labels itself as "journalism", "news", or "reporting" to have a measure of financial independence. ...but as it stands, it seems such independent agencies would not be able to financially sustain itself as so much "news" is free online, and people remain unwilling to pay for less-biased sources of information.
We have entered the disinformation age. If you are not paying for news, you are the product, not the consumer.
What is your definition of “good reliable content”?
I find it funny you cite left leaning sources that masquerade as objective. NYT hiring Sarah Jeong and claiming white privilege is rampant. Give me a break.
(This is an unpopular opinion, particularly on HN.)
Good content, sure.
Reliable, not so much.
Are you a journalist because you’re employed by a news organization? How are you any different than someone who writes a personal blog?
I wouldn’t want journalists to go through the hoops that doctors or lawyer needs to go through. In Journalism, like academia, you’ll encounter the problem where you accredite people who agree with you. Think of the rampant left ideology on college campuses, and the voting habits of college professors.
“A poll conducted by Ivy League professors and administrators at liberal arts and social science faculties showed that 84 percent voted for Al Gore in 2000, as opposed to 9 percent for George W. Bush. 57 percent identified themselves as Democrats while only 3 percent identified themselves as Republicans.”
Source: Robert Stacy McCain “Polls Confirm Ivy League Liberal Tilt,” Washington times. 1/15/2002
I suspect this gap has only widened and will continue to do so. (I’d love to see updated stats here.)
I wish journalists would gather some real world experience, defined as working anywhere that is not journalism, before they become “journalists”. I have more respect for these folk and I view them as more credible.
Tying this to buzzfeed, I’d be curious to see the average age and previous emoyment for these “journalists.”
I’d hope they’re not hired fresh out of university where left ideology is popular and pervasive.
Sidenote: Gaining real world experience also applies to these “lifetime academics”, particularly those in non-STEM fields on college campuses. Go experience the world before you criticize it then lay out utopian visions.
If these stories were about Obama, there’d be a lot more howling, but given it’s Trump, the attitude is that any story that confirms anyone’s bias is fine, regardless of truth. It’s disgusting and has made journalism into a tribal farce.
Yes, they are. Unnamed sources have brought down institutions ranging from the Nixon administration to the Boston archdiocese.
And pretty sure journalism started to become a tribal force about 20 years ago when Fox News launched. It is the same approach Murdoch took with papers in the UK and here in Australia.
BuzzFeed is? I only ever see them publish silly top-ten lists and click-bait articles.
"Buzzfeed News adds a Pulitzer winner and top Pentagon correspondent to its staff": http://www.niemanlab.org/reading/buzzfeed-news-adds-a-pulitz...
I keep seeing people say this but all I've seen is Peter Carr say the Buzzfeed story was "inaccurate". Do you have a source or citation for Mueller saying it was false? Thanks!
edit: (assuming we're talking about the Cohen Congress story)
Cognitive mistakes like this are a form of confirmation bias, sometimes called wishful thinking. You want this to be true, right?
It may well do but we don't know that at the moment. Trump may not have explicitly told Cohen to lie to Congress, for example, but the intent and meaning were clear from his words. Saying "he told him to lie" is then inaccurate but not false. There's a hundred other scenarios where they come out and say "inaccurate" without meaning "false". We won't know until the full report is out.
And Murdoch have been quite upfront in interviews over the last 2 decades that this is what they intended. They firmly established themselves as a right-wing station and pushed everyone else to the left.
It has nothing to do with tribalism or left/right politics. And everything to do with defending journalism in all its forms.
How's that working out for you?
Not unabated, but at an accelerated pace. Social media has now been weaponized and we are approaching civil war levels of hostility.
I think it's not an even split. The right is being conditioned to hate the left to a degree that is terrifying. Check out the propaganda that the NRA puts out. It is "Divide and Conquer 101"
The majority of the liberal commentary I register is more puzzlement, sadness, and fear (guns, guns, guns, baby!).
I would love to have dialog across the aisle but it seems impossible now. I can acknowledge plenty of "liberal failures" but that is a one way street.
For any of that commentary that is actually genuine, I'd be curious about the context. Intolerance of intolerance is different than intolerance itself. And aggression in what form?
The "far left" is a distinct minority, and tends to be focused on corruption and inequality, not about killing Christians or how white people are ruining this country (save for the topic of the genocide used to clear the way).
This divisiveness is intentionally cultivated both domestically and abroad -- it's been reported that Russia created opposing protests to encourage direct conflict: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-pag...
And before Trump, leftists already had a pretty intense hatred of Republicans/conservatives, and libertarians to the extent they know about them. America is extremely partisan, and the two major camps tend to strongly dislike each other, sometimes popping out as real hatred. Research shows that conservatives tend to know more about leftist positions than leftists know about conservative positions, so that suggests that leftists may be operating with more emotion and less information.
(And when I use the word "hate", I mean hate as defined in common dictionaries. The left has infamously co-opted the word to refer to any negative appraisal or feeling about a person or group of persons experienced or expressed by a non-lefist. I'm sticking to hate as extreme animus.)
I can point out my perceived flaws in Obama and Clinton without pause. Do you have any issues with the current President or his policies or administration?
Do you want to talk to this liberal and see if you can "reach across the aisle"?
What I've listed is the tip of the iceberg. There are attempts to extinguish any discussion of transgender issues, because a discussion necessarily implies "denial of a trans persons right to exist," a textbook example of catastrophizing. There is an increasing attempt to prevent people to speak on issues related to any gender or race that they themselves don't belong to, due to the lack of "lived experience" (something we used to call subjective, anecdotal, n=1 data). There is increasing social pressure on corporations that the proper response to someone like James Damore making academically backed claims when invited to give feedback is to terminate employment immediately.
You're right about a one way street, but you have the wrong direction. And please don't call the modern left liberals, they are absolutely not liberals in any sense of the word.
Alex Jones engaged in stochastic terrorism. The lawsuit against him will likely confirm that. Unless perhaps you agree with him that Sandy Hook was a false flag operation and those parents were crisis actors?
Jordan Peterson is a quack but I believe in the right of people to have stupid opinions and express them.
Sorry but I'm going to ignore the "liberals" on campus because I think that is a unique situations and kids are obnoxious on both sides of the aisle. I will agree that they have gone way too far in censoring dialog but I also think that one could make a cogent argument that there is such a thing as "hate speech" that at a certain degree does not deserve a platform (the problem is qualifying what that degree is).
I was referring to adults when I made my statement. Although now I'll concede that most people have difficulty hearing the other side; I've certainly seen a lot of that on HN when it comes to social issues.
I'm an old school liberal raised to be anti-war, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-corporate-statehoodism, question authority, blah, blah, blah. I can still point out "gotchas" within all of those that most liberals can be blind to. Because no system is perfect.
I would love to have a civil dialog with you to see if you can see and admit that conservatism has flaws too.
You gave one example that we could debate:
> because a discussion necessarily implies "denial of a trans persons right to exist,"
Would you care to engage?
And in any case, it's an unfinished story. BuzzFeed stand by their reporting and have asked the special counsel to clarify exactly what parts they are disputing (they did not say the entire story was false). So a little early to say it's a "false story".
There's always a risk for stories from indirect sources. If they publish something that's incorrect from these sources, they risk losing some credibility. This is how it should be and always has been with news organizations. I'm not sure what a sane alternative is here.
Mueller may have said it wasn’t true but it’s not uncommon for law enforcement to make comments like that about ongoing investigations.
HN comments are probably poor evidence on which to base corporate or branding strategy.
A few days ago, an independent journalist I like cited Buzzfeed News as an organization with some good journalists in it. I was very surprised, because BuzzFeed strikes me as a garbage site that doesn't care if it's destroying the public discourse with outrage bait.
From my perspective, BuzzFeed clearly did massive damage to the reputation of BuzzFeed News.
that's a load of bull crap. Being "Pulitzer nominated" does not make you good. As someone pointed out in the same thread, Dar Speigel journalist faked everything and got a ton of awards for his reporting. Do you think he works for next, would mention that he is fake news and not the awards - i bet it would be the opposite.
One of Buzzfeed biggest blunders about the Muller Investigation made every news source that cited it look like "fake news" this month. All done for sensationalizing and made the article more clickbaity.
Let’s try a few examples to see how understandable it is: “Cracked News”, “Walmart Luxury”, “College Humor University”.
Trump University.
Sample size of only 1 here, but the effect of a 2nd word added to increase legitimacy seems to have a negligible effect on the preceding word. If anything, the compound name seems to have less legitimacy. (This is probably a data outlier.)
I have a different evaluation of BuzzFeed's output, though I only become aware of the worst things that get some outrage. There is an undercurrent of identity politics. One shouldn't criticize and vilify entire groups on the basis of indelible characteristics. One shouldn't forward a narrative of certain groups, defined by indelible characteristics, inherently having bad behaviors. BuzzFeed has done this.
That’s because the person in question was a) speaking through a tribalistic ideological lense, not some sober view of the quality of their work and the complete picture of their output (is not a few talented ones who pop up once in a while in a sea replete with endless garbage and questionable editorial ethics) or b) doesn’t really follow Buzzfeed very closely and may only come across the occasional good thing that comes out in the minority of cases (and there no doubt are some good stuff that comes out of it)
like "Well _I_ know the difference but the random person does not and gets confused!"
These sort of circular meta-discussions in our politics get us so far from the reality that it makes it hard to know what people actually think
Until 10 minutes ago, I had the impression that the news section was just clickbaity stuff like "10 things that blah blah blah... number 6 will leave you speechless", now I just learned that they were considered for a Pulitzer.
Edit: not sure why you're being downvoted since yours was a legitimate objection
They might expect the reporting to be done in a silly manner (see splinter news), but I don't think that the credibility hit would be more than if it were some other website. The credibility line is basically "newspaper" and "everything else".
> The credibility line is basically "newspaper" and "everything else".
Yes that's pretty much how it works in my head. I realise that I tend give more credibility to anything that can be bought, printed on paper, at a newsagency[1], regardless if it's a daily newspaper or a weekly/monthly magazine. I am 40 by the way, it would be interesting to hear what younger people think, since they had way less exposure to traditional print news.
[1]the place where they sell newspapers, outside of Australia it's not called newsagency but I can't remember the correct term and a quick web search didn't help, sorry for that
BuzzFeed is the strongest example of the new generation of shallow, biased, predictable poli-trash media outlets and this will be impossible to overcome.
To all the people who keep saying 'Pulitzer prize'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Cooke
Not using the above to discredit the award or all people who have the award. But as recently seen with Der Spiegel, an award doesn't automatically give you immunity from criticism nor does it prove credibility. There are some awards and tests in life demonstrate objective truth, journalism has neither.
I've been transitioning back to traditional media — physical newspapers, DVRing the evening news, NPR, etc... and only visiting online news sites and Facebook one day a week.
I'm not sad that I'm not bombarded with a constant stream of clickbait stories and headlines that don't reflect the content of the article. Buzzfeed is the poster child for all that is wrong with "new media." If it goes the way of the newspapers it killed, I won't cry.
I feel mentally healthier, less anxious, better informed, and I sleep better. YMWV, but I encourage people to try to do the same to see if it works out for them. If not, there's still plenty of web sites out there peddling "free" news in exchange for peace of mind.
Foreign Affairs + Mother Jones is another combination.
Same with The New Yorker + In These Times.
Walter Duranty was misreporting on Holodomor for the New York Times and still won a Pulitzer prize which has not been returned or revoked
No, people aren't silly to mistake them. They're part of the same company, they share a brand, it's perfectly natural that people would associate one with the other.
If The New Yorker started a division called New Yorker Feed that did nothing but published stolen content from Twitter and reddit in such a way as to make teenagers neurotic about nothing and feel no self worth, nobody's going to say "Well, you shouldn't confuse The New Yorker Feed with The New Yorker, they're totally different", ditto any other respected publication house.
By the same token, FOX News having one hour of thoughtful, unbiased, unopinionated news that represents the two mains sides of the American political spectrum thoughtfully, equally, and respectfully doesn't make up for the other 23 hours of a day.
I don't care about BuzzFeed or BuzzFeed News one way or the other, but let's give the people who confuse the services a break.
An investigative journalist was found to have fabricated large parts of his reportage over years of work for the paper.
The real problem here is business model: expected average revenue per content piece vs. expected cost of production.
There's a winner-take-most dynamic in publishing revenue and audience development; top X stories get Y% of total revenue (with a huge power law effect). If you don't win top 5, you probably get almost nothing.
The cost of a newsroom scales linearly with articles; very hard to get productivity as you drive scale. Your odds of finding good topics drops according to a power law.
Very hard to drive pageviews of additional content with a digital audience vs. print... print would pick up the paper and read an extra couple of pages, since they already have paid for the headline article. Most digital visitors clicks out after a page.
Most of the sensationalism and wading into politics / drama is an effort to stretch that business model... find content which is stickier than objective reporting. The advertising model really does drive editorial strategy:
- In traditional print, I need to build a publication brand to drive subscriptions => subscriber revenue & ad pageviews. Generally points to credibility-building as the best strategy.
- In free digital, emotional crazy talk actually does better than responsible journalism...
Any chance that Smith, Leopold, or Cormier are in the 15%?
The news industry reminds me of the catholic church with the news companies acting like the catholic dioceses. Instead of banishing "bad journalists", the news industry just shifts them from company to company like the catholic church moves around "bad priests" from diocese to diocese. It still amazes me that any "news" company would hire Leopold after his previous gaffs. I guess as long as they keep to the "faith", nothing can't be forgiven and they'll always have a job in the industry.
I have family who simply cannot believe in trusted relationships like journalistic integrity (news reporting), or fiduciary responsibility (finance),
And yet there are thousands of people working every day, to keep their internet connections, photo and email services operational, minute by minute.
It seems to me that none of us have a clear idea of the relationships of trust we believe in, or ignore, or deny, just to get through a normal day.
I bet people would walk right past a headline in a tabloid at the grocery store, knowing its BS, but would repost the same exact story if Aunt Karen shared it on facebook.
> I mean just go to their website. Do you seriously call them a proper, trustworthy news source?
What's wrong with https://www.buzzfeednews.com/? It looks perfectly fine to me.
¹Also in their favor is the fact that BuzzFeed News doesn't have any sort of paywall. The only benefit I get from a subscription is knowing that I'm helping to support good journalism.
Incidentally, it seems that at least parts of the dossier have now been corroborated, and nothing has been disproven. There's still large parts of it that are in question of course, but I fail to see how it's been "discredited", it's merely been criticized.
Feel free to argue that BuzzFeed was incorrect in releasing a dossier full of raw intelligence before it had been corroborated. That's certainly something one can argue, and many people would agree (but not everybody). But that's not the argument you're making.
At the time, the dossier was disseminating through government and media circles, and being referred to in a lot of news and commentary, but the public had no access to it. The point of making the document available was to pull the curtain on that kind of NY/DC politics/media insiderism.
1,600 employees in that segment probably cost ~$120m per year in salary and benefits, give or take $20m. (their employee count was higher than 1,600 for a time though)
They likely have burned through a lot of that $400m in the last 40 months. TechCrunch reports they had just over 300 employees in mid to late 2013. So they increased headcount more than 5x in 3-4 years (another article reports they were up over 1,700 employees sometime in 2017).
I sincerely hope BuzzFeed News lives on and the rest of the business model of repackaging content found on social media and reddit goes into the dustbin.
They made a business of posting photos/jokes/memes without attribution and burned a lot of bridges. This is saying nothing about the quality of listicles and other content. As much as I detested the non-news part, I'm sure it was a click draw.
I'm not optimistic of BuzzFeed News continuing without the rest of the garbage on buzzfeed.com.
I don't pay for WSJ, so I could only read 1st 2 paragraphs. It says they want to invest more in the more 'promising' areas of content licensing & e-commerce? What the hell does that mean in this context? Are the going to try to sell their articles to other smaller sites to publish? Not sure what products they sell, so how is e-commerce involved? Selling products for advertisers?
And I also have a question for minimaxir who said he/she is a BuzzFeed employee. What does a data scientist do at a company like that? What kind of data are you crunching and hiw does it affect the companies descisions? Maybe this isn't information you can share publicly? But I'm interested in data science so I'm curious. Maybe you have some insight on what's happening?
BuzzFeed publishes a few things about that on the tech blog: https://tech.buzzfeed.com/
For example, a few NLP tasks such as identifying trending topics (https://tech.buzzfeed.com/identifying-trending-topics-for-bu...) and topic clustering (https://tech.buzzfeed.com/how-we-tagged-14-000-buzzfeed-quiz...).
I haven't written any posts for the blog (due to time), but I do want to write posts there soon :)
Anything beyond what's there I can't disclose publicly.
I'm not arguing you SHOULD pay -- I don't -- but found this unintentionally hilarious in a thread about all the layoffs recently in the online news business.
But more seriously, Google and Facebook take so much of the ad revenue it's not surprising to see so many unable to prosper.
I know nothing about advertising, I wonder why that's the case? Is it just about the sheer amount of volume FB/Google control? Are they in the position to be able to charge higher prices?
I mean, I'd imagine BuzzFeed racks up a huge amount of exposures/ click-thrus. But I guess the big guys just control such a huge % of people's time share on the net it can't compare.
BTW "they" has been used as a third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun for over a century, and it's superior to "he/she" not only in ergonomics but also because "he/she" doesn't work for nonbinary people whereas "they" works for everyone.
Sure, they do _some_ news well, but it's a tiny part of a much wider, broken system.
Doesn't look like the layoffs will be ending soon either. If it was just one or two that would be one thing, but this is forming a pattern. What do all these companies know?
I keep hearing word of a potential recession or downturn. Is anybody here more keyed in than myself and can provide an explanation?
Plenty of websites still make a killing creating content for ads. Just that the content is garbage and written by lowly paid "bloggers", not degree-holding journalists
I've been thinking about this a lot. There are a lot of interesting developments happening right now.
But I'm sure those 15% will find something more productive to do with their time.
Sorry about the snark.