Buzzed off

The death of BuzzFeed News -- no it wasn't the bit that did the quizzes -- shows how 'new' media barons are as grotesque as the 'traditional' kind.

Previously: A wild ‘no one tells me what to write’
Your update on a rather common bit of hack self-deception.

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Jonah Peretti, the founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, is as malign an influence on the media as Rupert Murdoch. He has exploited young journalists for years, built his empire on a mixture of ‘curation’ (theft with some extra self-serving ideology on top), deceit, and IP hoarding, and has just got richer even as he burned cash and let journalists go.

In 2021, I wrote:

Thinking about it, the founding of the Huffington Post was 'new' new media's original sin. It put 'media mogul' Arianna, dead-eyed future gazer Jonah Peretti and the Lucifer of the online right Andrew Breitbart (may he not rest in peace)  at the heart of defining what journalism would become.

I stand by it and, in fact, only feel it more intensely. In 2011, when Huffington Post was acquired by AOL, I was a freelancer for AOL’s TV site, writing a weekly review column called Remotely Furious. Bringing Arianna Huffington’s philosophy into the company meant I went from being paid for my work to being “offered the opportunity” to file the column for free.

When I asked Huffington at a ‘town hall’ meeting in London how I would be able to pay my bills with ‘exposure’ — something people die of, as the old meme has it — she delivered a verbal shrug. My editor tried to shush me and I never wrote for the company again. Remotely Furious returned for a while at Anorak which… shocking news… paid me.

At some point soon, I’ll write a longer edition about the horrendous history of BuzzFeed and Peretti’s personal role in the enshittification of online media and the murder of its true potential, but I’m still recovering from ill health¹. Instead, I propose to break down Peretti’s memo announcing that BuzzFeed News is shutting down to illustrate the extent of his horror as a human being.

The memo begins:

Hi all, 

I am writing to announce some difficult news. We are reducing our workforce by approximately 15% today across our Business, Content, Tech and Admin teams, and beginning the process of closing BuzzFeed News. Additionally, we are proposing headcount reductions in some international markets.

Impacted employees (other than those in BuzzFeed News) will receive an email from HR shortly. If you are receiving this note from me, you are not impacted by today’s changes. For BuzzFeed News, we have begun discussions with the News Guild about these actions.

“Difficult news” = we ratfucked your colleagues but don’t worry, you’re fine for now. “Headcount reductions” = sackings.

Peretti goes on:

The changes the Business Organization is making today are focused on reducing layers in their organization, increasing speed and effectiveness of pitches, streamlining our product mix, doubling down on creators, and beginning to bring AI enhancements to every aspect of our sales process.

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. As a result, we will engage with the News Guild about our cost reduction plans and what this will mean for the affected union members. 

The key phrase in that pile of regurgitated business vomit is “A.I. enhancements”. While Peretti is referring only to A.I. in the “sales process”, in January 2023, he boasted that BuzzFeed was partnering with ChatGPT creator OpenAI to create “A.I. inspired content… [moving] from an R&D stage to part our core business.” What curious timing…

Peretti’s memo goes on:

I want to explain a little more about why we’ve come to these deeply painful decisions. We’ve faced more challenges than I can count in the past few years: a pandemic, a fading SPAC market that yielded less capital, a tech recession, a tough economy, a declining stock market, a decelerating digital advertising market and ongoing audience and platform shifts. Dealing with all of these obstacles at once is part of why we’ve needed to make the difficult decisions to eliminate more jobs and reduce spending. 

But I also want to be clear: I could have managed these changes better as the CEO of this company and our leadership team could have performed better despite these circumstances. Our job is to adapt, change, improve, and perform despite the challenges in the world. We can and will do better. 

The use of “we” across those paragraphs is telling. Peretti is the CEO — the buck stops with him — or rather, in his case, the ten million bucks BuzzFeed has lost in every year of his leadership — but it’s “we” (the BuzzFeed News staff) who must carry the can. No one explains to Peretti that his neck is on the block in another round of “headcount reductions”.

The self-justification in the following paragraph must taste particularly bitter to those journalists, editors, and designers getting shitcanned:

Additionally, I made the decision to overinvest 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. 

You don’t love it that much, do you, Jonah? You didn’t “overinvest”, your Venture Capitalist overlords did and they were demanding you shutter the newsroom back in March 2022. The worst sort of CEO memo is the one left soggy with crocodile tears and Peretti cried a river:

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 like today. Our mission, our impact on culture, and our audience is what matters most, but we need a stronger business to protect and sustain this important work. 

“Sorry, I let you be so shit. I should’ve told you that you were worthless before.”

The memo goes on:

Please know that we 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 NYC last year, we will be reducing our real estate in Los Angeles — from four buildings down to one, which saves millions in costs as well as mirrors our current hybrid state of work.

I suspect that Peretti’s lifestyle will be unaffected. In 2020, he and his family upgraded from their $2 million home to a $5.2 million estate. But hey, don’t worry because…

I’ve learned from these mistakes, and the team moving forward has learned from them as well. We know that the changes and improvements we are making today are necessary steps to building a better future. 

That must make those BuzzFeed News employees facing unemployment and the loss of their health insurance benefits feel better. Jonah has learned and your career was the sandpit in which he came to understand those lessons. He’s “building a better future” and it’s better because you’re not in it.

Later in the memo, Peretti shows his A.I. assisted hand again:

… we will bring more innovation to clients in the form of creators, AI, and cultural moments that can only happen across BuzzFeed, Complex, HuffPost, Tasty and First We Feast. It might not feel this way today, but I am confident the future of digital media is ours for the taking. Our industry is hurting and ready to be reborn. We are taking great pains today, and will begin to fight our way to a bright future. 

The only positive “rebirth” of digital media would be one without Peretti’s dead-eyed opportunism at its heart. BuzzFeed News has produced many excellent and award-winning investigations (including winning a Pulitzer in 2021); it did so despite Jonah Peretti, not because of him. He conceived BuzzFeed as a means of creating ‘viral’ content and built it on a long history of plagiarism, theft, and IP hijacking. Many good journalists work and have worked at BuzzFeed News but their ultimate boss never has and will never be one. And he really doesn’t care.

His memo ends by lamenting “a difficult day” but Peretti’s own difficult day is yet to come. I hope it comes soon.

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