BuzzFeed News Is Shutting Down, Company Laying Off 180 Staffers
variety.comTodd Spangler NY Digital Editor BuzzFeed is shutting down BuzzFeed News because it is not able to turn a profit, according to a memo CEO Jonah Peretti sent to company staff Thursday.
The digital publisher is laying off 15% of its employees, or about 180 people, across BuzzFeed News and other divisions. Going forward, BuzzFeed will concentrate its news efforts in a single profitable news organization — HuffPost, which it acquired from Verizon in 2020, per Peretti’s memo.
The company’s flagship BuzzFeed.com site will remain in place. “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.
BuzzFeed News first launched in 2011 under then-editor in chief Ben Smith. In the memo, Peretti said, “I made the decision to overinvest in BuzzFeed News because I love their work and mission so much.
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