BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti broke the news in an April 20 email to staff members. The email was then posted on Twitter by New York Times reporter Ben Mullin.
"I made the decision to over-invest in BuzzFeed News because I love their work and mission so much. This made me slow to accept that the big platforms wouldn't provide the distribution or financial support required to support premium, free journalism purpose-built for social media," Peretti wrote.
"More broadly, I regret that I didn't hold the company to higher standards for profitability to give us the buffer needed to manage through economic and industry downturns and avoid painful days."
Aside from BuzzFeed News' permanent closure, Peretti also announced that 15 percent of staff members will be laid off. About 180 employees out of the company's 1,200 headcount will be shown the door as part of downsizing measures. The layoffs will affect BuzzFeed's business, content, administration and technology teams.
Peretti also wrote that BuzzFeed management is "proposing headcount reductions in some international markets." Nevertheless, he assured staff members that the company has exhausted many other cost-saving measures to preserve as many jobs as possible.
"We are reducing budgets, open roles, travel and entertainment and most other discretionary, non-revenue-generating expenditures. Just as we reduced our footprint in [New York City] last year, we will be reducing our real estate in Los Angeles from four buildings down to one. [This] saves millions in costs as well as mirrors our current hybrid state of work."
The BuzzFeed CEO closed his memo: "Over the next couple of months, we will work together to run a more agile and focused business organization with the capacity to bring in more revenue. Thank you for supporting one another on a difficult day."
Nolte: BuzzFeed was biased, dull and doomed from the start
Breitbart's John Nolte elaborated on the collapse of BuzzFeed News in an April 20 op-ed.
"The reason BuzzFeed News is closing is because [it] sucks," he wrote. "BuzzFeed News has always sucked … and it has never made money." The left-wing outlet was established in November 2011, and Semafor co-founder Ben Smith was appointed its editor a month later.
Nolte recounted that during the early days of BuzzFeed News, the outlet "made a cottage industry out of attacking Breitbart with lies and gossip." He zoomed in on McKay Coppins, former reporter at the outlet, for his 2012 rebuke of then-presidential candidate Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) that was caught on record. Coppins left BuzzFeed News in 2016 to join the Atlantic magazine.
In 2017, BuzzFeed News also leaked several emails from Milo Yiannopoulos, then an editor for Breitbart. The left-wing outlet accused him of consistently reaching out to neo-Nazis and White supremacists for story ideas and copy edits, citing the exchanges.
Also in 2017, the left-wing news outlet published the now-discredited Steele dossier used to smear former President Donald Trump. BuzzFeed News was the only one that published the 35-page dossier, as even fake news purveyor CNN refused to do so due to the lack of verification.
Smith, as the editor in chief of the left-wing outlet, said he did not regret publishing the dossier. He also added that he thinks BuzzFeed News was "well within the tradition of American journalism" in its decision to do so.
"We're proud we published it," he remarked in January 2017. "And I feel … it seems clear it was the right thing to do if you look at how much more we know than we knew days ago. And I think in three months, it will look even clearer." (Related: BOMBSHELL: Christopher Steele admits he wrote “Russia dossier” so Hillary could challenge 2016 election results: PROOF Deep State is real.)
According to Nolte, "Smith violated every journalistic protocol ever written to publish the Deep State's phony [Steele] dossier on Trump."
The Breitbart senior writer concluded his piece: "The whole thing was biased and dull and doomed from the start. Now, it's finally over."
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