BuzzFeed News

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

BuzzFeed News
Buzzfeed News website on July 21, 2018
Type of site
News
Available inEnglish
FoundedDecember 2011; 12 years ago (2011-12)
DissolvedMay 5, 2023; 10 months ago (2023-05-05)
Headquarters,
U.S.
OwnerBuzzFeed
Key people
URLbuzzfeednews.com
AdvertisingNative
Current statusDiscontinued

BuzzFeed News is an American

National Magazine Award, the National Press Foundation award, and the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting
.

On April 20, 2023, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced that BuzzFeed News would be gradually shut down as part of company-wide layoffs.[4] BuzzFeed, Inc. refocused its news efforts on HuffPost, which the company had acquired in 2020.[5][6] BuzzFeed News discontinued adding new content on May 5, 2023.[7] As of March 2024 there are still new celebrity gossip articles being posted to the buzzfeednews.com domain.

History

BuzzFeed News began as a division of

National Magazine Award.[10]

A 2017 study in the journal Journalism which compared news articles by BuzzFeed and The New York Times found that BuzzFeed News largely followed established rules of journalism. Both publications predominantly used inverted pyramid news format, and journalists' opinions were absent from the majority of articles of both. Both BuzzFeed News and the Times predominantly covered government and politics, and predominantly used politicians, government, and law enforcement as sources. In contrast, BuzzFeed News devoted more articles to social issues such as protests and LGBT issues, more frequently quoted ordinary people, less frequently covered crime and terrorism, and had fewer articles focusing on negative aspects of an issue.[12]

On July 18, 2018, BuzzFeed News moved from a section of the BuzzFeed site to its own domain, BuzzFeedNews.com,[13] with a Trending News Bar and programmatic advertisements.[14][15]

In January 2019, it laid off 15% of its staff.[16]

In May 2020, Smith left BuzzFeed News to become a media columnist for The New York Times and Schoofs succeeded him as editor-in-chief.[8] It also announced that it would be closing its Australia and United Kingdom operations.[17]

In March 2022, the company announced that it was in the process of cutting staff positions in an attempt to position itself for profitability. Editor-in-chief Mark Schoofs, deputy editor-in-chief Tom Namako, and executive editor of investigations Ariel Kaminer announced their departures. Staff buyout offers were made to reporters on the investigations, science, politics and inequality desks.[18] Approximately half of the company's 100 reporters were offered buyout deals.[19]

On April 20, 2023, BuzzFeed announced it would shut down BuzzFeed News as part of a 15% workforce cut. Approximately 180 jobs were at that time reported to have been expected to be cut,[needs update] and the shutdown was at that time reported to have been expected to be gradual.[20] According to Digiday, changes to news-related policies of social media platforms such as Facebook were indicated as a factor in the decision.[21][needs update] BuzzFeed, Inc. refocused news efforts into HuffPost, also indicating that some employees previously hired at BuzzFeed News may be rehired either there or at BuzzFeed.com.[5][6]

Editorial stance, coverage, and criticism

BuzzFeed News states in its editorial guide that "we firmly believe that for a number of issues, including civil rights, women's rights,

LGBT equality, there are not two sides" but goes on to state that "when it comes to activism, BuzzFeed editorial must follow the lead of our editors and reporters who come out of a tradition of rigorous, neutral journalism that puts facts and news first."[22] Some commentators have criticized BuzzFeed's editorial guide as internally inconsistent, arguing that BuzzFeed News cannot make claims to be neutral while also endorsing positions on controversial political issues.[23][24]

The media watchdog

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that in 100 BuzzFeed stories about Barack Obama in 2016 (most from BuzzFeed News, but also from the general BuzzFeed site), 65 were positive, 34 were neutral, and one was critical. The report called BuzzFeed's coverage of Obama "creepy" and "almost uniformly uncritical and often sycophantic".[25]

In June 2020, BuzzFeed News senior reporter Ryan Broderick was fired after it was revealed he had "plagiarized or misattributed information in at least 11 of his articles."[26]

Notable stories

ISDS exposé

On August 28, 2016, Chris Hamby published a series of articles detailing how international investors were using the investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) to "undermine domestic regulations and gut environmental laws at the expense of poorer nations".[27] Beginning with his article "The Court That Rules the World"[28] and continuing for an eight-article series, Hamby detailed alleged abuses of power of the court. The Pulitzer Prize nomination cited this as bringing attention to the court, and the articles were cited in a question to the European Parliament. In the articles, Hamby dives into cases such as Sajwani v. Egypt allowed investors who made deals with corrupt regimes to keep those deals after the fall of the regime. He also exposed how the threat of the court is used to prevent fines and expensive environmental cleanups, such as the leak of lead into the groundwater in Sitio del Niño, El Salvador.

The ISDS would go on to be a controversial part of NAFTA[29] and the TPP,[30] with the former being stripped of its ISDS provisions and the latter being rejected by the United States.

Steele dossier

On January 10, 2017, CNN reported on the existence of classified documents that claimed Russia had compromising personal and financial information about President-elect Donald Trump. Trump and President Barack Obama had both been briefed on the content of the dossier the previous week. CNN did not publish the dossier, or any specific details of the dossier, as they could not be verified. Later the same day, BuzzFeed News published a 35-page dossier nearly in-full.[31][32] BuzzFeed News said that the dossier was unverified and "includes some clear errors".[33] The dossier had been read widely by political and media figures in Washington, and previously been sent to multiple journalists who had declined to publish it as unsubstantiated.[31] The next day, Trump responded, calling the website a "failing pile of garbage" during a news conference.[34] The publication of the dossier was also met with criticism from, among others, CNN reporter Jake Tapper, who called it irresponsible.[32] BuzzFeed News editor-in-chief Ben Smith defended the site's decision to publish the dossier.[35]

BuzzFeed News faced at least two lawsuits as a result of publishing the dossier. In February 2017, Aleksej Gubarev, the Russian chief of the technology company XBT, and a figure named in the dossier, sued BuzzFeed News for

Michael D. Cohen, who was also named in the dossier, filed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed News.[42] The same day, Ben Smith again defended the publication in a New York Times op-ed, calling it "undoubtedly real news".[43][44] In February 2018, BuzzFeed News sued the Democratic National Committee to obtain their internal investigation documents regarding the hack of their server during the presidential campaign in order for the journal to better defend itself against Gubarev's lawsuit.[45] In April 2018, Cohen dropped his defamation suit.[46]

Leaked Milo Yiannopoulos emails

An exposé by BuzzFeed News published on October 5, 2017, documented how Breitbart News solicited story ideas and copy edits from white supremacists and neo-Nazis, with Milo Yiannopoulos acting as an intermediary. Yiannopoulos and other Breitbart employees developed and marketed the values and tactics of these groups, attempting to make them palatable to a broader audience. In the article, BuzzFeed News senior technology reporter Joseph Bernstein wrote that Breitbart actively fed from the "most hate-filled, racist voices of the alt-right," and helped normalize the American far right.[47][48] MSNBC's Chris Hayes called the article "one of the best reported pieces of the year".[49] The Columbia Journalism Review described the story as a scrupulous, months-long project and "the culmination of years of reporting and source-building on a beat that few thought much about until Donald Trump won the presidential election."[49]

Kevin Spacey sexual misconduct accusation

On October 29, 2017, BuzzFeed News published the original story in which actor

Gore on their service, which was in post-production at the time.[54][55] Spacey was replaced with Christopher Plummer in Ridley Scott's film All the Money in the World, which was six weeks from release.[56]

Michael Cohen story

On January 17, 2019, BuzzFeed News published an article in which the authors accused Trump of ordering his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about the timing of a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.[57][58] The article states that Trump was given updates by Cohen at least ten times and cites texts, messages, and emails as sources. In the day following the release of the report, many prominent Democrats called for impeachment if the accusations were true, including former attorney general Eric Holder.[59]

The office of

Mueller report in April 2019, the report found that while there was evidence that Trump was aware that Cohen had provided false testimony to Congress, "the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohen's false testimony."[60] BuzzFeed News issued an update to their original story stating, "The Mueller Report found that Trump did not direct Michael Cohen to lie."[61][62] Ben Smith, then-editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, responded by releasing notes from the FBI interview with Cohen, which said "Cohen told OSC (Mueller's office) he was asked to lie by DJT/DJT Jr., lawyers."[60] Smith said, "Our sources – federal law enforcement officials – interpreted the evidence Cohen presented as meaning that the president 'directed' Cohen to lie. We now know that Mueller did not."[60]

FinCEN Files

In September 2020, Buzzfeed News, alongside the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, released the FinCEN files, a collection of 2,657 documents leaked from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

Awards and recognition

BuzzFeed News received a 2016

Online Journalism Awards.[72] BuzzFeed News was a finalist for the 2018 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.[73] In 2021, BuzzFeed News won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for its coverage of the Xinjiang internment camps as a part of China's campaign against Uyghurs.[74][75]

BuzzFeed News is a member of the

Wikipedia editors to be a reliable source, and editors have distinguished BuzzFeed News from BuzzFeed, which has inconsistent editorial quality.[77]

References

  1. ^ Borchers, Callum (January 12, 2017). "Why so many journalists are mad at BuzzFeed". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  2. ^ Graham, David A. (January 11, 2017). "The Trouble With Publishing the Trump Dossier". The Atlantic. Retrieved November 7, 2018.
  3. ^ Greenwood, Max (January 10, 2018). "BuzzFeed editor defends publication of dossier". The Hill. Retrieved November 7, 2018.
  4. ^ Spangler, Todd (April 20, 2023). "BuzzFeed News Is Shutting Down, Company Laying Off 180 Staffers". Variety. Retrieved April 20, 2023.
  5. ^ a b Huston, Caitlin (April 20, 2023). "BuzzFeed News Shutting Down Amid Major Layoffs". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  6. ^ a b Darcy, Oliver (April 20, 2023). "BuzzFeed News will shut down". CNN. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  7. ^ Waclawiak, Karolina (May 5, 2023). "A Final Editor's Note". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved May 5, 2023.
  8. ^ .
  9. ^ Mullin, Benjamin (April 10, 2017). "BuzzFeed News gets its first Pulitzer citation". Poynter.
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  29. ^ Warren, Elizabeth. "Warren Urges U.S. Trade Rep to Remove ISDS Provisions During Next Round of NAFTA Negotiations".
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  71. ^ "Here are the winners of the 2021 Pulitzer Prizes". Poynter. June 11, 2021. Retrieved June 11, 2021.
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  75. ^ Raj, Yashwant (June 12, 2021). "Two Indian-Americans win coveted US journalism honour". Hindustan Times.
  76. ^ Marantz, Andrew (March 13, 2017). "Is Trump Trolling the White House Press Corps?". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 23, 2018.
  77. ^ Harrison, Stephen (July 1, 2021). "Wikipedia's War on the Daily Mail". Slate. Archived from the original on July 1, 2021. Retrieved October 16, 2021. Wikipedia editors have distinguished the inconsistent editorial quality of BuzzFeed ... as opposed to BuzzFeed News, a recent Pulitzer Prize winner that is considered a reliable source.

Further reading

External links