
BuzzFeed to Cut 15% of Its Workforce - taytus
https://www.wsj.com/articles/buzzfeed-to-cut-15-of-its-workforce-11548286211
======
minimaxir
Disclosure: I work at BuzzFeed.

It's worth noting that other journalism companies have announced layoffs today
with Gannett ([https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2019/gannett-lays-
off-...](https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2019/gannett-lays-off-
journalists-across-the-country/)) and Verizon/Yahoo/Oath
([https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/23/tech/verizon-media-
layoffs/in...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/23/tech/verizon-media-
layoffs/index.html)). Tough day for the industry. :(

~~~
maccio92
Verizon is a journalism company?

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elektor
Verizon is the parent of Oath (and therefore owns TechCrunch)

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GhostVII
Oath is now called Verizon Media

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b_tterc_p
Why doesn’t buzzfeed split the brand between buzzfeed and buzzfeed news.
Clearly, as evidenced by these comments here, buzzfeed is doing massive damage
to the reputation of the news section; and I highly doubt the target market of
the non news section is there because of their competent news half.

~~~
pvg
_as evidenced by these comments here_

HN comments are probably poor evidence on which to base corporate or branding
strategy.

~~~
hobofan
Every time (n = ~20) I've told a new person about a well researched
BuzzfeedNews article, I got essentially laughed at.

~~~
pvg
Well, I don't know how good of a focus group the 20-odd people you've told
about Buzzfeed News are. I do know that every HN thread on the topic of
journalism attracts a lot of HN users who have very strong, highly
unsubstantiated views about it.

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lazzlazzlazz
BuzzFeed is a great example of how focusing on short-term revenue-maximizing
metrics (clicks) at all costs can create irreparable long-term reputation
damage - a quiet, hard-to-detect debt that can sink a brand.

BuzzFeed is the strongest example of the new generation of shallow, biased,
predictable poli-trash media outlets and this will be impossible to overcome.

~~~
rootusrootus
I would have said BuzzFeed is a great example of mixing up two sites together
such that people who aren't capable of doing any actual research will just
conflate the two. We live in a TL;DR headline-only world, so maybe this isn't
that ironic.

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iagovar
Id like them to cut 100%, honestly. IDK in english but their spanish version
is complete garbage that brings nothing to the table, except clickbaity info
and wannabe toxic political analysis, which is nothing more that uber biased
confirmation bias feed. And Im not even sure if Im being hyperbolic here.

~~~
daurnimator
They cover Australian politics better than most of the "real" news outlets.
Would be sad to see that go.

~~~
shrewduser
they do? i've never heard of that, i waded into the clickbait but i can't even
find their politics section

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throwaway12112
It's weird people are defending Buzzfeed here. As a long time lurker, it
seemed like the community here is for fact reporting and truth seeking.
Buzzfeed has had at least two major blow ups in the past year. Perhaps two of
the biggest blunders in years. On top of that, they have constantly reported
things without all the facts causing major damage to innocent people.

To all the people who keep saying 'Pulitzer prize'.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Cooke](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.

~~~
zapzupnz
It's even odder to see people make the defence "Well, BuzzFeed News isn't
BuzzFeed, and people are silly to mistake them".

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.

~~~
arduanika
Or to put it another way: if BuzzFeed News were the original company, and some
outfit decided to call themselves BuzzFeed and pulled the kind of crap that
BuzzFeed pulls, BFN would send the quickest cease and desist ever lawyered.

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sixtypoundhound
Laugh.... reading the comments, I feel like the guy in the star wars trench
run that needs to keep saying "stay on target"....

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...

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jessaustin
_" In response to the statement tonight from the Special Counsel's spokesman:
We stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it, and we urge the
Special Counsel to make clear what he's disputing."_ \-- BuzzFeed News Editor-
in-Chief Ben Smith

Any chance that Smith, Leopold, or Cormier are in the 15%?

~~~
porpoisely
Even if they were fired, another company would pick them up.

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.

~~~
jessaustin
This seems a bit overblown. Lots of people still believe that priests have a
role to play in society other than molesting children. In contrast, does
anyone really believe that the media has a purpose other than afflicting
politicians who are skeptical about some wars?

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jhpriestley
What a nasty comment section. I'm not the target audience for Buzzfeed myself,
but instead of crowing over people losing their jobs I just don't click their
articles.

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zwaps
Sorry to the people who lost their jobs, but I do not think that Buzzfeed has
a good product.

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watersb
Crikey, the comments here...

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.

~~~
asdff
Part of the huge effect power from all the social media propaganda was how
people view this junk as legitimate when it was posted by a friend or family
vs. a cold monolithic organization filled with, in Sarah Palin's infamous
words, "the liberal media elite."

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.

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solarkraft
I propose a work force cut of 100% after spinning off BuzzFeed News under an
untainted name.

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mysterydip
BuzzFeed employs ~1600 people? Maybe it's my ignorance on content companies,
but that seems excessive for what they produce. Is there someone that can
provide a bit of a breakdown of jobs so I'm more informed?

~~~
m0zg
That's what's stunning to me. There are youtubers shooting videos from their
kitchen or bedroom for approximately zero dollars who have larger audiences
than these "mainstream" publications. I don't understand how they can still
exist with 1600 people in their employ. Furthermore I don't understand what
those 1600 people actually do other than make shit up and repost other, more
legitimate news sources.

~~~
eridius
BuzzFeed News staff were finalists for the Pulitzer in both 2017 and 2018.
What makes you think they "make shit up and repost other, more legitimate news
sources"?

~~~
m0zg
Do you work for Buzzfeed by any chance or have some financial interest in it?
Because otherwise I don't see how you could in good faith defend this wretched
hive of scum and villainy. I mean just go to their website. Do you seriously
call them a proper, trustworthy news source?

~~~
eridius
I don't work for them, nor do I have a financial interest in them. What I do
have is a personal interest in the continued existence of the only journalism
outfit that's actually managed to earn a recurring subscription¹ from me due
to the quality of their articles.

> _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/](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.

~~~
m0zg
Let's start with the fact that there's a fake news story in the upper left
corner debunked by Special Counsel Mueller's staff a few days ago. :-)

~~~
eridius
No it wasn't. They said it "wasn't accurate" but declined to specify. Most
people seem to think this means there are inaccuracies to the story, but the
overall thrust of the piece is still true.

~~~
m0zg
How about another one: the "pee pee" dossier which was also released by
Buzzfeed. Do "most people" still "seem to think" it's true or has it been
discredited enough by now?

~~~
eridius
The dossier which BuzzFeed did not create themselves? I largely skipped news
coverage of this besides vaguely knowing of its existence, but AIUI BuzzFeed's
rationale is that it was newsworthy (being as it was a document that was
circulating at the highest levels of the US government and media).

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.

~~~
m0zg
I'm old enough to remember the olden days where the onus was on the news
outlet to do some basic fact checking and corroboration _before_ publishing
stuff.

~~~
pulisse
BuzzFeed was explicit when they published the dossier that it was raw and
uncorroborated. They didn't claims its contents to be true, or base other
assertions on it. They made the raw document itself available for public
download.

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.

------
strict9
This is terrible news for journalists and others affected by this action.

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.

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thatguyagain
It's a shame that such an important news source is not doing better. In this
day and age, we NEED a website like this to bring us valuable information and
help us navigate through all the noise and useless distractions out there. I
mean just take a look at their front page today: "21 Secrets Wegmans Employees
Would Never Tell You, But I Will". Who else would tell me if not Buzzfeed??

~~~
dave5104
You can criticize BuzzFeed News, but you should at least look at BuzzFeed
News' actual homepage, and not their sister site, when doing so:

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/)

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40four
While I don't disagree with any of it, maybe the Hate has gone too far in this
thread, so I won't pile on. It is tempting though :p haha.

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?

~~~
minimaxir
> What does a data scientist do at a company like that?

BuzzFeed publishes a few things about that on the tech blog:
[https://tech.buzzfeed.com/](https://tech.buzzfeed.com/)

For example, a few NLP tasks such as identifying trending topics
([https://tech.buzzfeed.com/identifying-trending-topics-for-
bu...](https://tech.buzzfeed.com/identifying-trending-topics-for-buzzfeed-
news-d1759fac888e)) and topic clustering ([https://tech.buzzfeed.com/how-we-
tagged-14-000-buzzfeed-quiz...](https://tech.buzzfeed.com/how-we-
tagged-14-000-buzzfeed-quizzes-using-k-means-clustering-95fc46bc6daf)).

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.

~~~
40four
Cool, thanks for the articles, I'll check them out. I'm interested in learning
more about data science, maybe pursing it in the future if I get ever get
tired of web development.

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jakequade
Good. Their site is trash.

Sure, they do _some_ news well, but it's a tiny part of a much wider, broken
system.

------
coryfklein
My list so far: Apple, Tesla, Buzzfeed, Verizon/Yahoo/CNBC, HuffPost, SpaceX

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?

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eruci
The content creation for ads business is dead.

~~~
_eht
This is verifiably untrue.

~~~
stcredzero
Maybe it's more like a zombie. Largely, there is no longer a moral creature
with agency left inside. What's left is just a ravenous bundle of crude
instincts shambling towards the next clickbait.

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rblion
What do you think the article means by "shifting digital-media landscape"?

I've been thinking about this a lot. There are a lot of interesting
developments happening right now.

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mellow-lake-day
I think Buzzfeed News needs to rebrand itself from Buzzfeed so people stop
getting the two confused

~~~
winningcontinue
This is news itself to me. If they're actually two separate organizations, are
they really operating independently? If they rebranded, I'll eventually find
out and find it suspicious they changed names.

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iagovar
Is buzzfeed journalism?

~~~
aspaceman
Buzzfeed has both a click-baity division and Buzzfeed News, which has been
breaking important investigative stories for the past several years.

~~~
stcredzero
Right now, corporate tech values the click bait, not actual news organizations
that fact check themselves and do actual investigation.

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pssdbt
"250 People We're Letting Go"

~~~
sattoshi
Number 33 really shocked me

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antisthenes
Well, maybe they finally figured out how to automate clickbait title/article
generation.

But I'm sure those 15% will find something more productive to do with their
time.

Sorry about the snark.

