Buzzfeed News to close as media firm cuts jobs

BBC: Buzzfeed is to close its news site and cut its workforce by 15 percent,  Chief Executive Jonah Peretti has said.
It comes as the digital media company faces serious financial challenges, including a slump in advertising spending. 
Calling the decisions “deeply painful”, Peretti said he could not invest more in the unprofitable news site.
He said the firm would focus on delivering news via the HuffPost, which Buzzfeed took over two years ago.

“Our industry is hurting and ready to be reborn,” he said in a memo to staff. “We are taking great pains today, and will begin to fight our way to a bright future.” 
Founded in 2006, Buzzfeed was once one of the trendiest names in online media, known for its quizzes and viral content, as well as a serious news operation. 

But the firm, which employed more than 1,300 people globally at the end of last year, has shifted away from news, as bringing in ad revenue and audiences became more difficult and other lines of business, such as producing custom content, grew more quickly.

It listed on the stock exchange in 2021, but raised far less money than it had hoped. 
“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 to staff.

Many other advertising-reliant companies, including media firms and tech giants such as Facebook’s owner Meta, have been making job cuts in recent months, while investors have been forced to reassess the values of upstart news ventures such as Vice News and Vox Media. News company Insider also revealed plans on Thursday to reduce its workforce by 10 percent or about 95 jobs.

Peretti said his company, which will continue to operate HuffPost, its food brand Tasty, Complex Networks, and its namesake website, had faced wider challenges but he also blamed himself.