BuzzFeed News is shutting down

BuzzFeed News is shutting down. It was not long ago was seen as a success and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. BuzzFeed founder and CEO, Jonah Peretti, informed staff in a memo saying the decision is part of a 15% cut down of BuzzFeed’s workforce.

“While layoffs are occurring across nearly every division, we’ve determined that the company can no longer continue to fund BuzzFeed News as a standalone organization”, Peretti wrote.

“Moving forward, we will have a single news brand in HuffPost, which is profitable, with a loyal direct front page audience.”.

Last year, Peretti said that BuzzFeed News would need to “prioritize the areas of coverage our audience connects with the most.” He also announced 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.

CNBC at that time quoted “people familiar with the matter” and reported that “several large shareholders have urged Peretti to shut down the entire news operation.”

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 News started as a division of BuzzFeed in 2011. In 2018 it was moved to its own domain BuzzFeedNews.com. It has been awarded a number of prestigious prizes including the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.