Buzzfeed announcing top editors leaving
BuzzFeed announced top management changes at the same time as the company reported its financial results for the first time as a public company saying it expects revenue to fall by “a low single-digit percentage” in the current quarter and record an adjusted loss between USD 15 million and USD 20 million.
Editor-in-Chief Mark Schoofs announced he is stepping down adding that deputy editor-in-chief Tom Namako and executive editor of investigations Ariel Kaminer would also leave.
Samantha Henig, BuzzFeed News’s executive editor of strategy, will be interim editor-in-chief.
CEO Jonah Peretti said in a separate email to the staff that BuzzFeed News would need to “prioritize the areas of coverage our audience connects with the most.” He also announced further job cuts across the company, including on the BuzzFeed video team and the editorial team at Complex Networks, a lifestyle publisher that BuzzFeed acquired last year, as well as the business and administrative teams, the New York Times reports.
CNBC quoted “people familiar with the matter” and reported that “several large shareholders have urged BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti to shut down the entire news operation.”
BuzzFeed News last year won its first Pulitzer Prize for a series about Chinese mass detention of Muslims. The series was based on satellite pictures, 3D architectural models and interviews.
BuzzFeed recently went public via a deal with a special purposes acquisition company (SPAC) giving the company an implied valuation of USD 1,5 billion. Prior to that, BuzzFeed had bought news website HuffPost from Verizon Communications and downsized its operations.
BuzzFeed was founded 2006 and soon became well-known for quizzes and so called “listicals” but the media company has since grown to be a respected news media covering everything from politics and economics.
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