r/technology
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u/marketrent
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Mar 19 '23
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BuzzFeed, after gutting its newsroom, asks reporters to produce even more — Meanwhile, the company's stock is struggling, revenue is in free fall, and editorial ambitions remain hazy Business
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/buzzfeed-news-profit-strategy4.5k
u/BeardedDragon1917 Mar 19 '23
Damn, there was like a 18 month period where Buzzfeed News was making good articles, and people could say with a straight face that the shitty listicles and clickbait was paying for good journalism. Guess that went out the window.
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u/SonOfMcGee Mar 19 '23 •
The listicles are only one of about twelve things wrong with the company.
The fourth will surprise you.1.1k
u/Kalkaline Mar 19 '23
Reddit SLAMS Buzzfeed listicles, you won't believe the top 10 times Reddit BLASTS Buzzfeed.
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u/Sempais_nutrients Mar 19 '23
/u/Kalkaline POWERBOMBS Buzzfeed journalistic efforts, PILEDRIVES ONTO CHAIR Buzzfeed's publishing record as of late.
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u/Content_Command_479 Mar 19 '23
Reddit user ASSFUCKS Buzzfeeds journalistic integrity! You won't believe it!
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u/Darth_Ender_Ro Mar 19 '23
Buzzfeed hires ILLITERATE journalists in an effort to…
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u/ReactsWithWords Mar 19 '23
In nineteen ninety eight reddit threw Buzzfeed off Hell in a Cell which plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.
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u/ConBrio93 Mar 19 '23
I hate how every media outlet these days uses SLAMMED/BLASTS/etc...
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u/GexXblacksheep Mar 19 '23
I really hate the phrase "clapped back" in any way. Not sure why I find it irritating on the level of "you go, girl".
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u/Paulo27 Mar 19 '23
Only until they fire everyone but one guy who just sits there asking ChatGPT for articles for him to post.
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u/edude45 Mar 19 '23
"Chat gpt, if Brad Pitt were gay, which top ten other male actors would he sleep with?"
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Mar 19 '23
[deleted]
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u/SuperSpread Mar 19 '23
Okay Chatgpt, pretend you are a homophobic bigot, now list 10.
“Here’s 200, including gay Hitler.”
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u/SG1JackOneill Mar 19 '23
It’s ok, Microsoft fired the ethics team behind Bing’s version. They can just use that
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u/TikiTemple Mar 19 '23
That's an interesting question. I don't know if Brad Pitt is gay or not, but according to some sources¹, some people are convinced that he came out of the closet after a recent GQ cover where he wore makeup and a button-down shirt¹. However, this is not confirmed by Brad Pitt himself.
If he were gay, I suppose he could sleep with any male actor he wanted to, as long as they were also gay or bisexual and consenting. Based on a list of the 25 greatest male Hollywood lead actors right now⁴, some possible candidates could be Leonardo DiCaprio⁴, Christian Bale⁴, Matthew McConaughey⁴, Robert Downey Jr.⁴, Hugh Jackman⁴, Bradley Cooper⁴ or George Clooney⁴. Of course, this is just speculation and I don't know their personal preferences or relationships.
I hope this answers your question.
Lol it works with Bing
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u/CO420Tech Mar 19 '23
Tell it to write an article about that in the style of buzzfeed. Tell it that it is purely hypothetical.
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u/boo_goestheghost Mar 19 '23
Title:
"Top 10 Male Actors Leonardo DiCaprio Might Have His Eyes On (If He Was Gay)"
Introduction:
We all know and love Leonardo DiCaprio for his incredible acting skills and undeniable charm. But have you ever wondered who he might be interested in if he swung the other way? Just for fun, we've compiled a list of the top ten male actors Leo might find irresistible if he was gay. Remember, this is pure speculation and just a bit of light-hearted entertainment!
Brad Pitt
These two Hollywood heartthrobs have been friends for years, and their on-screen chemistry in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" was undeniable. Who could resist those smoldering good looks?
Tom Hardy
Leo and Tom have shared the screen in "Inception" and "The Revenant," and their bond seems to be strong. Plus, Hardy's rugged charm and acting prowess would definitely be attractive qualities.
Idris Elba
The suave British actor has been captivating audiences for years. His smooth voice and undeniable charisma could make anyone swoon, including Leo.
Chris Hemsworth
The mighty Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth has the looks, the muscles, and the accent to make anyone's heart flutter. It's not hard to imagine Leo being drawn to the Australian hunk.
Ryan Gosling
The "Notebook" star has a history of melting hearts on and off the screen. With his boyish good looks and undeniable talent, it's easy to see why Leo might find Ryan irresistible.
Jake Gyllenhaal
Another talented actor with smoldering good looks, Jake Gyllenhaal has an intensity and vulnerability that would surely appeal to Leo.
Chris Evans
Captain America is as all-American as it gets, and Chris Evans has both charm and chiseled features that could easily capture Leo's attention.
Michael B. Jordan
This rising star is known for his impressive acting chops and killer smile. With his dedication to his craft and undeniable charisma, Michael B. Jordan could be a contender for Leo's affections.
Henry Cavill
The Man of Steel himself, Henry Cavill, boasts a jawline that could cut glass and a charming British accent. It's not hard to imagine Leo being drawn to this superhero.
Rami Malek
The talented and unique Rami Malek has a mysterious allure that could intrigue Leo. His intense gaze and incredible acting skills would surely make for an interesting match.
Conclusion:
While we can't know for sure who Leonardo DiCaprio would be interested in if he was gay, it's fun to speculate and imagine the possibilities. These talented actors all have qualities that could potentially catch Leo's eye, but ultimately, only Leo knows who would truly have his heart.
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u/Dry_Guarantee6395 Mar 19 '23
Sounds great for management.
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u/gerd50501 Mar 19 '23
that 18 months proved they could not make money off of good news. good news is expensive and you can't make money giving it away for free.
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u/_TorpedoVegas_ Mar 19 '23
Right, that is why sensible countries subsidize real journalism. No one in a rational nation expects democracy to survive without a functional 4th estate
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u/wh0else Mar 19 '23
That can lead to media controls. Sadly the internet has half killed the singlular truth that good journalism needs people willing to pay for it. Advertising online has been variable in it's success, and I get thethe resentment of paywalls, but we've started to expect lower quality for free now.
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u/I_likemy_dog Mar 19 '23
Seems like every other “ask Reddit” thread is buzzfeed drivel.
What are the top things Europeans do that American’s can’t understand?
What are the top things your partner does that annoys you?
Tell us a time where you quit a job because they didn’t respect your off time?
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u/Mist_Rising Mar 19 '23
Reddit as a whole is basically designed to be broad generic crap that succeeds.
Which is also what buzzfeed is.
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u/kneel_yung Mar 19 '23
I read a while back that they were treating their journalists like shit and the good ones kept jumping ship
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u/Mist_Rising Mar 19 '23
They were, and they tried to unionize (succeeded too) but that didn't help much.
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u/reverendsteveii Mar 19 '23
Why have the shitty articles pay for the good ones when you can instead have the articles just pay you directly as a stockholder? Remember that under this variant of capitalism there is nothing more important than the stock price right now.
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u/gidonfire Mar 19 '23
I got into a few arguments with who I presume to be BuzzfeedNews employees a while back on reddit.
My complaint: Why the fuck did they hitch their wagon to the name Buzzfeed that they've been building as a clickbait bullshit websit?
Them: IT'S PULITZER WINNING NEWS.
Me: But the name. WTF people?
In the end, I think it was the name. They just didn't bank on how long it would take to rebrand Buzzfeed. It's like Kleenex wanted to switch to making cars.
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u/ForCaste Mar 19 '23
I knew a reporter that went from NYT to Buzzfeed in like 2015 and his reasoning was really easy. They were snatching up great journalists by paying more money and giving more editorial control. Their goal was to establish buzzfeed news as a reputable source, and it totally worked. Everything else buzzfeed collapsed
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u/LigmaSneed Mar 19 '23
Remember when Hulk Hogan sued Gawker into oblivion? Good times.
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u/CarlySimonSays Mar 19 '23
The Gawker guy had such a big ego to think he was going to win that case, but Peter Thiel’s $$$ behind Hogan sure did the major work of digging that grave.
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u/Agi7890 Mar 19 '23
In a deposition, don’t be a smart ass and say you’d draw the line at a sex tape of a 4 year old
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u/CarlySimonSays Mar 19 '23
Dang I forgot that part. What an idiot.
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u/blahbleh112233 Mar 19 '23
Don't forget that the line is also apparently drawn on nudes of celebrities that they like (aka the fappening).
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u/SuperFLEB Mar 19 '23
Exactly! Even if you insist on not assessing the organization as a single unit, there's still plenty of dumb move happening by whatever branding genius is insisting on keeping the little dinghy of respectable news tied to the vast sinking ship of its reputation as vapid fluff.
Hell, even without the reputation, the name isn't appropriate. "Buzz feed" as a phrase tracks with "Gimme a line of gossip" far more than hard news.
I think maybe someone was drinking the company kool-aid hard on BuzzFeed's stature and name recognition.
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Mar 19 '23
In the end, I think it was the name. They just didn't bank on how long it would take to rebrand Buzzfeed. It's like Kleenex wanted to switch to making cars.
If I woke up a billionaire tomorrow I think I may just start a hard core news organization.
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u/RegressToTheMean Mar 19 '23
The Associated Press exists
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u/BASEDME7O2 Mar 19 '23
They don’t publish articles, just facts. Despite what redditors think well researched long form articles that put these facts in context are important. Unless you’ve studied international politics for years you’re not gonna be able to draw any useful conclusions from a couple sentence blurb about something that happened to like a warlord in Africa. They also don’t do any investigative journalism, which is also important. I know all redditors think they’re geniuses that can read a couple facts on a topic and be an expert, but you can’t.
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u/roadto75 Mar 19 '23
TIL Buzzfeed is publicly traded.
Wouldn't go near that dumpster fire of a stock with a ten feet pole
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u/hillarysabortedson Mar 19 '23
10 AMAZING Things You Can Do With Change You FIND In Your Washing Machine:
1) Buy Buzzfeed stock
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u/Mentos13371 Mar 19 '23
The fact that it's publicly traded is probably why it's imploding. They're chasing the dragon called growth.
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u/cartsucks
Mar 19 '23
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The terrible part is they completely poisoned the name "buzzfeed" because buzzfeednews.com (not buzzfeed.com) does some amazing journalism. Among other stories they are the ones who received the leaked "FinCen Files" which showed that FinCen (the US govt agency in charge of monitoring suspicious financial transactions) was basically not doing anything and money laundering was freely happening under their watch and a lot of major banks including JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, etc. were directly involved in allowing money laundering to happen.
Speaking of Natalie Edwards (the former FinCen employee who leaked the files) should be a whistleblower hero but instead she was accused of "causing national security issues" and was convicted and spent 6 months in jail for exposing corruption.
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u/the_hillman Mar 19 '23
Absolutely, for a while their actual news team were world-class. And then they gutted it.
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Mar 19 '23
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u/bot-for-nithing Mar 19 '23
Is this the journalism side tho?
Ask the influencer and content creator drama i thought was on BuzzFeed proper not their news side.
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u/QuickAltTab Mar 19 '23
That doesn't sound accidental, sounds like they pissed off the wrong rich people.
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u/puderrosa Mar 19 '23
No, it's a consequence of people not willing to pay for good reporting, or even just reading long articles.
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u/OG_Kush_Wizard Mar 19 '23
Which Buzzfeed ironically helped usher in. The garbage top 10 lists of recycled content replaced actual journalism.
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u/Syrdon Mar 19 '23
The downward trend in that has been going on for longer than buzzfeed has existed.
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u/DeletusApostropheus Mar 19 '23
They didn't say BuzzFeed started it. They said BuzzFeed helped do it.
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u/dudleymooresbooze Mar 19 '23
For a few years there, Buzzfeed and Cracked were both synonymous with the clickbait top 10 list spread across two web pages. Both tried cutting their better, pricier content creators to improve profitability.
Both seem to have found that publishing high traffic, worthless content will get you advertising revenue for a while, but you will devalue consumer perspective of the URL until people assume every link is garbage.
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u/Shikadi297 Mar 19 '23
At least cracked had actually interesting content back in the day, sure they had listicles, but they were actually in depth and interesting. Buzzfeed was always the bs click bait with no substance
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u/slicer4ever Mar 19 '23
Also some of the "lists" were more like reading a deranged man go insane, there was some great content on cracked like 8-10 years ago.
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u/dudleymooresbooze Mar 19 '23
Most Cracked articles were fantastic and genuinely entertaining. Buzzfeed had a mix for a time though it leaned heavier on the BS. In both instances, though, the companies killed their own brand names.
If 1/10 meals at a restaurant are out-of-this-world amazing, but the other 90% are absolute trash, people will avoid the restaurant. That’s what both Cracked and Buzzfeed did to themselves.
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u/SkeetySpeedy Mar 19 '23
What cracked had were actual good writers - all the ones that made them great in that heyday went on to other successes of their own, while Cracked went down.
Even if it was just a list, you had a theme over the course of what was written about it, actual humor along the way that wasn’t just screengrabs of other people’s tweets - jokes, narratives, complete ideas - writers.
Then they had their own great long form content that was fucking hilarious, a pretty good companion to The Onion in a lot of way, and their video series run by those teams were hilarious too.
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u/nescienti Mar 19 '23
Cracked made its cuts due to outside forces, though. They probably could have kept coasting on listicles, but instead made a very expensive pivot to videos because google was paying way, way more for ads on videos. Then it turned out that was only because someone at google had forgotten to carry the two (or something) and the algorithm was wrong about how valuable video content actually was.
So they “fixed the glitch” and overnight a ton of people’s jobs were no longer viable, including people on the non-video side because the organization as a whole just didn’t have the revenue it expected.
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u/DizzySignificance491 Mar 19 '23
Not really
Newspapers started dying before Buzzfeed
They just demonstrated a new web-based model that also fails to fund well-researched journalism.
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u/DadBodybuilder Mar 19 '23 •
Newspapers weren’t dying before the web. Or even during the heyday in the 90s. Print advertising revenues sustained small independent community newspapers for generations. What happened is a new middleman was introduced.
Previously, publishers held all the power when it came to advertising, and if your publication had the reach, then you could charge a lot for it. They positioned themselves as a checkpoint between the advertiser and the consumer.
This ‘checkpoint capitalism’ affects more than just journalism, but Google / Facebook usurped that roll from publishers. Instead of the paper connecting advertisers to consumers, they relied on Facebook / Google to connect journalists to their readership (among many other distribution networks over the years).
Google / Facebook manipulated it so the advertising dollars went to them, not the paper. They would scrape the data and populate just enough (usually the headline and opening lines) to satiate the reader’s curiosity without them clicking off a Google / Facebook site, thereby keeping them in an advertising ecosystem that starves journalism of ad revenue.
Coupled with the fact the online journalism revenue was largely an afterthought in the 90s - papers published it for free since they still made a great deal from print revenue. By the time the online world was built, users expected free news articles from every publication.
Once subscriptions, article limits etc. came to be, readers abandoned high-quality, expensive journalism for cheap, free articles that were inferior, or were from publicly-funded broadcasters that are under the threat of having funding removed by groups that disagree with their content / perceived political bias (looking at the defund the CBC crowd in Canada).
This is still early in the decline though. It was exacerbated in the 2008 financial crisis when thousands of community newspapers folded - most after their offices were bough up by large corporations and shut down, or had their staff sizes cut significantly.
For instance, Canada’s newspapers are roughly 90% owned by PostMedia, which is controlled by an American media conglomerate. This means that if you have more than one daily/weekly community paper in your area, chances are they are both owned and operated identically with slight (re: none) differences in content.
Ottawa, Canada’s capital, is underserved locally because both dailies are from Post Media, community papers run too infrequently to counter false claims made in their reporting, and these papers parrot the national daily - the National Post. Essentially, they use a network of papers as a wire service, cutting the cost of producing local content and cherry picking national content.
So, a combination of general anti-intellectualism, unwillingness to pay for a product that was provided freely online (despite the print version costing money in most cases), consolidation and gutting of the industry, and the outright theft of content and ad revenue by tech companies, journalism has been bled dry. Death by a thousand cuts, as it were.
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u/bot-for-nithing Mar 19 '23
They didn't say newspapers were dying before the web, they said they were dying before buzzfeed which is true. They started in 06 right before the crash and became popular afterwards.
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u/Unusual_Flounder2073 Mar 19 '23
That and the fact that people think everything on the internet should be free.
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u/MVRKHNTR Mar 19 '23
No, that was an existing trend that Buzzfeed jumped on and used to fund their actual journalism.
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u/nickyno Mar 19 '23
Worked in a similar newsroom. Idk if it’s about pissing off the wrong people or the general 21st century newsroom problem of balancing profits, news, and content. Three things that don’t really go hand in hand.
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u/firewall245 Mar 19 '23
Not everything is some grand conspiracy
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u/DizzySignificance491 Mar 19 '23
It is when you've literally never read a decent nonfiction book in your life
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u/noCure4Suicide Mar 19 '23
Why do you think that wealthy people using their power to control the news cycle and our information is a conspiracy? It’s literally the reason that almost all newspapers are owned by 3 organizations. While I’m not saying that buzzfeed is an example of this, it’s obviously not a conspiracy that powerful people use information, disinformation and lack of information to control people without power.
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u/positiveornothing Mar 19 '23
Yes. Worst decision ever was using the name "buzzfeed" for their news arm. By the time many people had any inkling that buzzfeednews was not the clickbaity shitshow that buzzfeed.com was, I think the damage was done.
I avoided anything with "buzzfeed" in the URL for most of the time buzzfeed has existed.
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u/Informal-Teacher-438 Mar 19 '23
Didn’t we hear a few years ago how the federal department responsible for watching over Wall Street had nearly all their computers stuffed with porn, as if they weren’t doing anything? I’d love an external auditor to go through all of the government departments and see just how much work they are not accomplishing, and see who is stopping them from doing it.
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u/vgodara Mar 19 '23
Just watched easy money and the person from fed reserves was asked why were they using such blunt tools to fix the problem his answer was because no one else is doing anything so it falls upon us
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u/elkanor Mar 19 '23
Alternatively, BuzzfeedNews was how they were trying to get that product to people not normally interested in news articles. Their early hires in News were rising stars and they made big reporting moves. I just don't think they understood how to make it sustainable - because a lot of quality journalism is running on subscriptions & grants nowadays.
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u/casper667 Mar 19 '23
The big blunder they made is associating their legitimate news with the terrible reputation of buzzfeed. They have to have known buzzfeed was known for low quality content. They cheaped out and didn't want to create a new sister-company for their news and spend the money to market it into a big name, they gambled and thought people would just understand context and ignore the past decade of terrible listicles and meme videos the company was known for, and they even kept posting those low quality things while writing legitimate news so even after their news was established most people's first exposure to Buzzfeed was still something crappy and not journalistic at all. The past few years it has even been somewhat of a trend to make videos about why someone left buzzfeed and how terrible the company is. Someone will probably write a case study about them discussing the importance of reputation.
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u/McMacHack Mar 19 '23
Strange how many DotCom pages that do good news for a while end up an Ad ridden shell of their former selves that end up fading into obscurity after breaking open major scandals like that. It's almost like attacking the elite coincidentally leads to their downfall.
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u/ImpureAscetic Mar 19 '23
I don't think that was the order here. Buzzfeed was the first one, and it allowed them to make Buzzfeed News, which was to be propped up by the silly better known site. The ad ridden shell was first in this case.
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u/foldingcouch Mar 19 '23
The core problem is that good and important journalism doesn't pay the bills. There just isn't any money in exposing corruption and attacking the elite, because people just don't like to pay for their news. Journalism is all about page clicks and ad views and you get those a lot easier hocking ad-ridden garbage than you do on important news.
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u/FlyYouFoolyCooly Mar 19 '23
Man. It's like every progressive movement takes 3 steps forward. Then 3 steps back. Then 2 steps forward. Then 3 steps back. Then 4 steps forward, then 3 steps back. The revolutionary idea that a free press was crucial to democracy is so important for exposing corruption which can allow the government to step in and investigate it further to stamp it out. Of course it's almost always an uphill battle.
As Picard said, liberty requires constant vigilance. (It might not have been liberty but was along the same principles).
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u/Lee_Ars Mar 19 '23
As Picard said, liberty requires constant vigilance. (It might not have been liberty but was along the same principles).
Picard was quoting an aphorism most commonly attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty."
Or, more common and shorter: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
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u/HomeOnTheMountain_ Mar 19 '23
The success of free press is dependent on the consumption of others. Most people don't give a shit. Some do but won't read long articles. Others will but won't pay for them. Most just really don't care.
And that's how you get rage bait and ad based "news"
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u/almisami Mar 19 '23
What's the point of knowing all these bad things if you can't do anything about them?
It's not like you can give a bank lashings...
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u/TootsNYC Mar 19 '23
Overworked people cannot produce good content. Certainly not the kind of content that makes people read your website repeatedly.
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u/theskymoves Mar 19 '23
Chat gpt will be pulling so hard in their newsroom.
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u/cynerji Mar 19 '23
Until chatGPT breaks down because there's no more ad money to pay writers to make content for chatGPT to parse to put ads on to pay writers....
Saw a good video from Hank Green the other day talking about a coming ouroburos effect. These AIs don't necessarily "generate" anything as much as "prettily regurgitate."
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u/throwaway73019 Mar 19 '23
Saw a good video from Hank Green the other day talking about a coming ouroburos effect. These AIs don't necessarily "generate" anything as much as "prettily regurgitate."
ironically you are doing the same thing here xd
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u/cynerji Mar 19 '23
Ha! With the difference being I'm hoping to drive things his way and giving him credit. :D (Not being obtuse, just kidding with ya)
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u/hoopbag33 Mar 19 '23
Their problem is a branding one. Everyone associates Buzzfeed with useless bullshit (and rightly so). BuzzfeedNews should have been a brand so far away from Buzzfeed it is literally unrecognizable.
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u/marketrent Mar 19 '23
Excerpt from the linked content1 by Charlotte Klein:
According to the Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed’s roughly 100-person newsroom downsized by about 40 percent in the past year. All of which made BuzzFeed News editor Karolina Waclawiak’s recent request for more content somewhat ironic, if not inevitable.
Waclawiak reportedly framed her plan to boost the news division’s volume and traffic as part of an effort to shore up profitability this year, while acknowledging that the newsroom is “much smaller than it used to be.”
(Perhaps that informed [BuzzFeed CEO] Peretti’s decision to embrace AI technology to create content, as he announced earlier this year.)
But Waclawiak assured staff that the newsroom's increased publishing volume “had improved the visibility of its content on external platforms including Apple News and NewsBreak, leading to higher revenue,” according to the Journal, which reports that traffic referrals from Facebook, which BuzzFeed previously relied on, have been flagging.
BuzzFeed’s news division has been repeatedly battered. Buyouts last spring saw the site’s acclaimed investigations team—as well as its science, politics, and inequality verticals—gutted.
Top editors, including the site's then editor in chief, Mark Schoofs, departed.
1 Charlotte Klein for Vanity Fair/Advance Publications, 16 Mar. 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/buzzfeed-news-profit-strategy
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u/dvddesign Mar 19 '23
Maybe the CEO should be outsourced to AI, then.
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u/dethb0y Mar 19 '23
You kid, but i suspect an AI-based CEO would be both more productive and less likely to outright fail than a traditional CEO while costing a fraction.
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u/addhominey Mar 19 '23
The news side used to be great, actually. Won or at least was a finalist for the pulitzer a few times, if I remember right. I don't know all the financials, but the fluff side funded it for years. As the article says there've been layoffs in the newsroom and I personally know a few journalists who quit or took buyouts and moved to highish positions in WSJ, NYT, and other serious newsrooms. It's sad because the dwindling/demise of Buzzfeed's news operation means there's one fewer newsroom doing real and deep investigation work.
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u/chanelwescoast Mar 19 '23
half of buzzfeed’s ‘articles’ are just posts they found on reddit so not surprised
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u/3pbc Mar 19 '23
The other half are click bait titles with a paragraph of information that they stole from somewhere else that doesn't support the title
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u/barrystrawbridgess Mar 19 '23
"Here's 10 Reasons Why Buzzfeed Sucks"
Ad, Ad, Ad, Full screen Ad
The Next button appears
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u/livefreak Mar 19 '23
That's not right. That's 4 reasons on one page. Buzz feed does only one at a time.
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u/HeartyBeast Mar 19 '23
Sadly, this was Buzzfeed News, which did produce some excellent journalism and was separate from the main listicle-producing tripe
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u/RemnantHelmet Mar 19 '23
That's the core website. Buzzfeed News, oddly enough, is a respected and pulitzer prize-winning journalistic institution.
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u/40ozkiller Mar 19 '23
The mistake was not coming up with a new name so most people still think its all clickbait they come to expect from Buzzfeed.
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u/QuickAltTab Mar 19 '23
Reminds me of the Christian Science Monitor, somehow a whack-a-doodle cult put together an apparently legit and respected journalism organization. I still don't use them as a primary source, but I like to see what kind of stuff they put out occasionally.
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u/BlisterBox Mar 19 '23
The same is true of BoredPanda, although with them, it's more like 90% of their content is reddit-derived.
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u/yoursmartfriend Mar 19 '23
Their "president" Marcela Martin used to work at my company as CFO and she is currently under investigation by Italian police for corporate tax evasion. Poor leadership through and through.
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u/Cfunk_83 Mar 19 '23
Sounds like the MO of a lot of companies these days: decrease workforce, increase productivity, stagnate wages.
Long live capitalism and it’s constant demand to be fed growth.
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u/ThrobbingAnalPus Mar 19 '23
I hate BuzzFeed so much - I think they were kinda cool back in the day, but now they’re just the absolute epitome of “rainbow capitalism.” Over 50% of their content at this point is just thinly-veiled advertisements, and the rest is just stolen content and over-the-top pandering to women and LGBT+ people
But the sad thing is, as far as news media organizations go they’re actually pretty benign - as far as I can tell, they’re not state-influenced propaganda machines like most of them
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u/40ozkiller Mar 19 '23
If you think thats bad you should see what gawker/gizmodo have become.
Killing splinter was the quick decent into ads dressed as poorly written blog posts with a “splinter” of the former comment traffic.
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u/CoyzerSWED Mar 19 '23
Vice is trending the same way. There are well-written articles next to Best Organic Buttplugs and Horoscope bullshit.
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u/ThrobbingAnalPus Mar 19 '23
Vice makes me super sad - they released some incredible documentaries. That North Korea one is fantastic
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u/brdoma1991 Mar 19 '23
It’s almost as if a company that claims to be a news source shouldn’t be a publicly traded company
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u/Double_Lingonberry98 Mar 19 '23
MBA 101 textbook:
Q: How to make a cow eat less and give more milk?
A: Feed it less and milk more.
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u/bellendhunter Mar 19 '23
If I’ve learned anything from r/ProRevenge and r/MaliciousCompliance gutting the employee base and expecting the rest the pick up the slack is the start of the end for any company.
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u/Kfct Mar 20 '23
I think what is turning me away from reading articles in general isn't the articles themselves (buzzfeed writing isn't bad per say) but the monetization cancer ads everywhere, annoying pop ups, weird footnote ad banners to articles written by unaffiliated websites (Your dentist hates this one trick! With a gross closeup of a rotting tooth). It's just suffocating.
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u/EvoEpitaph Mar 19 '23
Hey it sucks for the employees but sometimes businesses need to fail out of existence. Can't just keep everything afloat especially if it's not producing anything of value.
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u/OctavianBlue Mar 19 '23
Should look up Zombie Companies, Japan had a big problem with this at one point where they were propping up huge companies but really those companies needed to fail and move out the way.
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u/YawaruSan Mar 19 '23
Yeah, no shit. I’d like to point to G4TV and how big elaborate production on niche popularity a successful business venture does not make.
Then I’d point to crunch culture with has been a big problem in video game development for decades and say this bottomless expectation for workers and unaccountable incompetence of management (who paradoxically pull down the biggest paycheck despite their negative impact) a successful business venture does not make.
Then I’d point to East Palestine and how Precision Scheduled Railroading contributed to the catastrophic humanitarian and ecological disaster because greedy CEOs expect more work from fewer people to line their own pockets, a successful business venture this should not make.
This flagrant abuse of work forces across all industries is ridiculous and it all comes from the same place: ego, narcissism, greed, lack of restraint, unwillingness to be regulated, “just trust me” entitlement to play fast and loose with the lives of other human beings.
Workers have a fiduciary duty to eat the rich, we are legally obligated to follow through based on US law. That’s the same excuse they use to ignore our humanity, we should be legally obligated to do the same.
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u/zaj89 Mar 19 '23
Omg here’s 15 things to read about buzzfeeds news, you’ll never believe #8!!
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u/nirothewolf Mar 19 '23
Only thing that keeps them alive is the buzzfeed animation lab. Like Chikn Nuggit, Land of Boggs, etc.
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u/dontsendmeyourcat Mar 19 '23
Buzzfeed worked when social media feeds gave space to URLs, now it’s all about video