Online media firm Buzzfeed is to close its UK and Australian news operations. The US company, which set up its London office in 2013, said the decision had been made "both for economic and strategic reasons".
Buzzfeed said it would be focusing on news that "hits big in the United States during this difficult period". Some staff will stay on to cover social news, celebrity and investigations for US readers, but it is thought about 10 jobs are affected
>that people don't want clickbait and endless listicles?
I genuinely haven't been on Facebook for so long I have no idea what shit people share with each other anymore, or what Buzzfeed even publishes nowadays.
Is Facebook still just full of endless pictures quotes of celebrates saying sweeping political statements which people will share but never want to discuss.
>>24851 You're showing your hand with your lazy jokes about clickbait. The news desks of outlets like Buzzfeed and Ladbible - they of the decent coronavirus briefing question - actually do news, and you don't seem to realise this.
Gave me a chuckle. How many unpaid interns will be affected?
>Is this a sign the standard of journalism may improve in this country, that people don't want clickbait and endless listicles?
It's more a sign of American media taste these days and the sheer scale of the audience. The rags have long since realised that they get most of their clicks from the US market which is hungry for lowbrow media. I think it's the Mail that now uses US measures like kilometres and dollars online.
I remember talking with Americans nearly 20 years ago that they had better print but worse broadcast news while we had the opposite. In hindsight it was obvious where this would go online.
I think this is more indicative that they have fallen victim to the winds of change that once made them such a success. Buzzfeed has been a ubiquitous Internet source for quite a while now, it's heyday was back when us lot will have been in uni or starting our first proper jobs. In Internet terms it's ancient. It's for boomers. Times have moved on, the youngsters now just get influence beamed directly into their head from tik tok.
>Is this a sign the standard of journalism may improve in this country, that people don't want clickbait and endless listicles?
No, it portends an absolute disaster for the news media. Buzzfeed used all that clickbait money to also run a serious, impartial news service. Their investigative bureau is one of the best in the world, breaking a slew of huge stories from Trump's Russian connections to Putin's London-based death squads to Kevin Spacey's wandering hands.
The news industry has been struggling for many years, but the COVID crisis has absolutely obliterated their ad revenues and will push many news outlets into bankruptcy. Those outlets won't disappear, they'll just be bought up by the worst kind of bastards as their own personal propaganda mouthpiece.
This only pushes us closer to the US media model, where vast media conglomerates with shady owners use loss-making news outlets as a means to manipulate the public, bully politicians and fortify their business empires.
Buzzfeed might have used gaudy clickbait to pay the bills, but at least they were genuinely independent. The Independent, on the other hand, is jointly owned by ex-KGB agent Alexander Lebedev and the Saudi royal family.
>>24859 The rest generally holds for most news outlets though, a lot of time gets spent generating clickbait or writing poorly sourced/verified articles to generate ad revenue in an environment where production targets have to be met. I'm certain there must be at least one decent investigative journalist working at the Mail, amidst the cavalcade of trash that gets published, that justifies its market share. The Graun is absolutely awful when it comes to opinion pieces, but it seems to come up with the goods now and again as far as uncovering government cock ups and shenanigans goes.
>No, it portends an absolute disaster for the news media. Buzzfeed used all that clickbait money to also run a serious, impartial news service. Their investigative bureau is one of the best in the world
I want to believe you but I have never seen any evidence to reflect this reality. The only thing I've seen other than obvious clickbait is the kind of yellow journalism that is all about whipping up mobs and moral outrage. Which is in many ways just a more sophisticated form of clickbait.
The difference with Buzzfeed is the strict delineation between Buzzfeed proper and Buzzfeed News. There's never any doubt in the Buzzfeed office as to whether something is clickbait or actual news, whereas a lot of the Guardian commentators are operating under the delusion that they're important thought leaders rather than middle-class liberal Littlejohns.
You're going to have a hard time convincing me there's such a thing as unbiased, independent journalism, and you're taking the absolute piss if you're going to tell me Buzzfeed was it. And then you're just pushing your luck thinking the Pulitzer prize means fuck all to jack shit.
Better the devil you know is a sound argument in many cases, but this country's very future rests on removing the influence of Rupert Murdoch. Any collateral damage is acceptable.
What's happening now will only enhance the powers of figures like Murdoch. News Corporation is a loss-making venture, but Murdoch doesn't need to turn a profit on news - he doesn't really mind the fact that it has lost around a billion dollars a year over the past few years, because it's cross-subsidised by the rest of his media empire. It's effectively a strategic investment in buying influence.
That's the reality of an unprofitable news industry. Comment is cheaper than reporting and there's always someone willing to bankroll propaganda.
>>24878 He's not selling Kitskats and beholden to a market that won't eat shit-flavoured ones mate, he's influencing public opinion and there's more money to be made in that than just by telling people what they want to hear.