Pulitzer Prize-winning and one of the few news brands to have mastered the online space, Buzzfeed News, is no more.
As much as Buzzfeed used to be a joke of misinformation, over the past few years it had released a lot of exclusive and groundbreaking journalism. But all of that is all over with Buzzfeed shutting down its news division and culling 15% of its overall staff.
The layoffs amount to roughly 1,200 employees, spreading across the news division, business, content, tech and administrative teams. In addition, the company is considering job cuts in international markets.
Peretti said in a memo to staff that he “made the decision to overinvest” in the news division, but failed to recognize early enough that the financial support needed to sustain operations was not there.
“I’ve learned from these mistakes, and the team moving forward has learned from them as well,” Peretti wrote in the memo. “We know that the changes and improvements we are making today are necessary steps to building a better future.”
BuzzFeed News won its first Pulitzer in 2021, in international reporting, for a series on the mass detention of Muslims by the Chinese government, written by Megha Rajagopalan, Alison Killing and Christo Buschek.
BuzzFeed News was also known for an expose on the global banking industry’s role in money laundering. A former U.S. Treasury Department employee was sentenced to six months in prison this month for leaking the confidential financial reports that served as the basis for the series.
