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

[u/marketrent]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/buzzfeed-news-profit-strategy

[u/dontsendmeyourcat]

Buzzfeed worked when social media feeds gave space to URLs, now it’s all about video

[u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS → u/dontsendmeyourcat]

I cannot understand how the pivot to video was so successful. Myself and most people I know absolutely hate having to sit through a video to get the point across. Reading is so much easier. You can do it anywhere without annoying the people around you, you can stop and pick it back up very easily, you can skim it. Unless it is a strictly visual thing I’m trying to get more information about, I don’t see the appeal of video.

[u/xKaelic → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

I go out if my way to skip videos. I think it's an incredibly misled tactic, and only plays on trends instead of actually being the best delivery method.

[u/isurvivedrabies → u/xKaelic]

fuck yeah, it's a contest to figure out how to prevent the video from playing in the least amount of time. and some sites can be dirty, like making unpausable ads before the video starts, so you have to scroll the website for it to do that fucking annoying picture-in-picture window that gives you an x to close.

[u/acidbase_001 → u/isurvivedrabies]

Try uBlock Origin.

Haven't seen any autoplay videos or pop out windows in years.

[u/Almc27 → u/xKaelic]

I figure if it's something I really needed to know someone will eventually write about it, then I can read it instead of watching an awful video

[u/RedditsAdoptedSon → u/xKaelic]

it’s the commercials for me. and i’ve been on reddit for years now since it never has pop up ads

[u/DroopyMcCool → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

https://www.ccn.com/facebook-lied-about-video-metrics/

[u/NyranK → u/DroopyMcCool]

Advertising's greatest success is in promoting advertising.

At this stage, though, it feels like too many businesses paying more and more for a sliver of the populations limited attention span, just a bloated ouroboros convinced it's on the right path because it's always got something to eat.

[u/Ethiconjnj → u/NyranK]

A phrase from a makeup CEO goes something like “I don’t know what advertising works or why it works, all I know is sales go down when we stop.”

[u/isurvivedrabies → u/Ethiconjnj]

my anecdotal experience is that advertising compels me maybe twice a year. i assume most people are about the same, and it's impossible to target when someone is in a state where they could be influenced by the advertising.

the best you can do is have a captive audience with married interests. like advertising waifu body pillows at an anime convention.

[u/friendlyfire → u/isurvivedrabies]

my anecdotal experience is that advertising compels me maybe twice a year.

I assure you, it's way more than twice a year. You only realize it influences you twice a year.

[u/Tasseikan33 → u/friendlyfire]

Yep, when I started making efforts to cut advertising out of my life as much as possible I began to take much longer to make decisions whenever I had to buy a new product. I realized it was because before then I would just tend to go with the brand I had seen ads for. That kind of unnerved me when I thought about it. I'm usually pretty careful when making decisions but the ads were influencing me more than I thought. Ads influencing a person isn't always about making you think "I want to buy that thing now!" like I thought it was. It can be more about building familiarity with a brand name so when you see their products in a store you're already somewhat familiar with them and that might make you more likely to buy them instead of another brand.

[u/Bozzzzzzz → u/Tasseikan33]

That’s exactly how it works. 98% of it is just making/keeping people aware of your brand or product and making it memorable enough that when the time comes they want/need to buy the kind of thing you sell, your brand is top of mind. The other 2% is having a net positive association with your brand but it’s not even that necessary.

The basic definition of the word “advertise” is just “to make known.”

[u/Alex09464367 → u/Bozzzzzzz]

Lock picking lawyer does good advertising for Master Lock as an easy lock to pick so I got some to see if I can learn to pick a lock.

[u/Daddysu → u/Tasseikan33]

Exactly! A car add isn't made to make you jump off your couch and go buy a Ford right now. It's so in the future, if you ever decide you need a truck - Ford is already at or the top of your brain's association of the word truck.

[u/sprucenoose → u/Ethiconjnj]

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.”

-John Wanamaker

[u/radicalelation → u/DroopyMcCool]

They lied because they defined a "view" as 3 seconds, compared to YouTube that defines it as 30 seconds? With how sites are chasing the "shorts" format, 3 years on since that article, it doesn't seem inflated, it seems that's what they've put their focus into.

[u/DroopyMcCool → u/radicalelation]

Yeah you're not wrong. We've definitely seen a switch over, probably due in part to the success of tiktok. I think the main issue is user engagement rather than time. Three seconds of an ad playing during a scroll versus clicking on a video and then closing the tab after 30 seconds. I guess in hindsight marketers should have been a little more skeptical of facebook's methodology when faced with insane numbers like are outlined in the article, but of course the blinders go on once the dollar sign shows up.

Edit- I should also add that I don't work in tech, advertising, or media so I don't really have any profound insight here. Just rehashing what I've read, which is why I just dropped the article link without any commentary.

[u/AtomWorker → u/radicalelation]

If you think those estimates are exaggerated you should sit in on meetings where ad agencies are presenting metrics to clients. They deceive them as much as they do the general population. They don't get called out on their BS because marketing heads and brand managers rely on that same data to expand budgets, secure roles and advance careers.

[u/itsalexjones → u/radicalelation]

I think originally everyone felt it was unfair to define 3 seconds as a view because the video auto played and it was thought that 3 seconds was chosen because it was shorter than it would take a user to stop the video or scroll on

[u/em_are_young → u/radicalelation]

It points to how using flawed methodology will give you the wrong answer. I listened to a freakonomics a while back where someone from google said that when they started providing the answer without needing people to click on the link, searches went up. Therefore people like the change and want to use google more.

The problem is that if I’m trying to find a piece of information and one of those answers is giving me the wrong answer i am going to change the wording and search again. I will have searched more but it would have been a net decrease in my satisfaction with the search results.

[u/radicalelation → u/em_are_young]

The problem is that if I’m trying to find a piece of information and one of those answers is giving me the wrong answer i am going to change the wording and search again. I will have searched more but it would have been a net decrease in my satisfaction with the search results.

An even bigger problem in my mind is I've seen many people Google, read a wrong top answer, and take that as correct. I tried pointing it out once to a friend when I saw them do it and we talked about how it could make it easy to grab the wrong answer by accident. They totally agreed, as it just happened, and I thought it was fruitful discussion, but I noticed them do it a bunch more over the years.

The same people I've seen do it also whip out Google like a pocket encyclopedia, but I worry all googling by them are as surface level. The friend I addressed it with, the subject was reptile care, and they're a serious herp-enthusiast...

I don't fuck around with my animal care so I felt it needed addressing at the time, but they've gone through a lot of critters.

[u/marxist-reaganomics → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

I hate how the first 4 Google results are always a fucking YouTube video. No, just let me skim a blog post real quick so I can quickly get the info I want.

[u/1-760-706-7425 → u/marxist-reaganomics]

The real time saver is ctrl + f. Pretty hard doing that with video / audio.

[u/donjulioanejo → u/1-760-706-7425]

Oh, you don't want to watch through a 10 minute story about someone's grandma when all you wanted was a tutorial on how to dice onions?

[u/dread_pilot_roberts → u/donjulioanejo]

The only story about onions that I have patience for is how people used to tie them to their belts, which was the style at the time.

[u/Beautiful_Welcome_33 → u/1-760-706-7425]

Literally stealing our lives and time and hotkeys!

[u/Mortress_ → u/marxist-reaganomics]

Blog posts? Every blog post result on Google is like:

Google: what is 2 + 2

Blog post result:

What is 2 + 2

2 + 2 is a question a lot of people wonder about. If you are one of them please read on.

[Two ad banners]

The question

The first thing to know is the question itself, what does it mean to ask what is 2 + 2?

...

[u/marxist-reaganomics → u/Mortress_]

Don't read the entire blog post. Skip towards the end, right before the concluding paragraph and the answer is usually there. Or depending on how technical/ dense it is scroll until you see the first screenshot and start reading from there. I'm a programmer so I need to speed read through a lot of tech blogs. If I can't find the answer I want in a few seconds I'm onto the next result.

[u/Mortress_ → u/marxist-reaganomics]

That's kinda hit of miss. Sometimes they just have a huge "conclusion" paragraph. I usually just google "[question] reddit"

[u/mbz321 → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

Even YouTube "How To' videos annoy me. I'd rather have a page of steps and pictures.

[u/imfm → u/mbz321]

Those drive me nuts. Title card, stupid intro music/animation, a little blah-blah introductory padding, this video is sponsored by, then sponsor stuff (I will never use NordVPN), and at long last, the video, except I have to try and skip through it, looking for wiring diagram, or whatever the one piece of information that I only hope is there, or watch the whole thing...because it's a video and I can't search it.

[u/SplurgyA → u/imfm]

The Wadsworth Constant - you can skip the first 30% of a YouTube video without missing anything important.

Even without intros, if I'm looking up something very specific in Adobe Illustrator or Premiere Pro the video always goes "ok so here's what the finished effect looks like [skip] so I'm just going to open a new document [skip] draw a shape with the shape tool [skip] ok so now I'm going to apply a brush, if you can't see the brushes then go to the task bar, then scroll down and click brushes and then you'll have your brushes, or you can hit F5 [skip] and now how to do the actual bit you looked up is [YouTube Advert]"

[u/sheslikebutter → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

Why read a recipe when you can watch someone cook it in 6 seconds in 4k, with no information as to how to cook it and no ingredients list?

[u/Dreamtrain → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

I hate so much the move to tiktok-style videos, often time they dont include a progress bar I can skip or rewind, I'm just stuck with a video playing.

Endless scrolling too is another new design fad that sucks almost everywhere its implemented because it has no use there and they dont clean out properly objects so your endless scrolling truly ends because your memory is overloaded

[u/LeChatParle → u/Dreamtrain]

How about when endless websites put their “about us” section or other useful info at the bottom, but you can’t reach it because it loads more content to scroll through. Not a single thought went through these peoples minds in their life

[u/UltravioletClearance → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

It wasn't successful at all. Facebook lied to its advertisers and media companies about the success of short-form video content. They concealed a bug in the video metrics code that inflated video view counts by up to 900 percent, and passed the bad data on to advertisers and media companies.

This lie is where the "pivot to video" strategy came from. Media companies fired their writers and replaced them with video editors expecting a 900 percent increase in engagement. When that didn't happen, they fired all their video editors and now they're left with one sucker doing five people's jobs.

[u/wynnduffyisking → u/UltravioletClearance]

How do you not get nailed on fraud charges for that?

[u/khoabear → u/wynnduffyisking]

By having an army of lawyers

[u/Ok-Kaleidoscope5627 → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

It's not about what you do or don't like. It's about the fact that video based ads are FAR more profitable than text based ads. You're going to get video whether you like it or not.

[u/BadBunnyYonaguni → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

Reading is infinitely faster. Even when I watch videos on 2x or 3x speed - it’s still far faster to read. I don’t get how people prefer video, it’s sooo slow. And most people pad out the video.

[u/pippipthrowaway → u/BadBunnyYonaguni]

People like multitasking. Can’t read a book while doing something else, but you can throw a video on in the background and listen. Double the productivity! ^/s

I think the engagement also helps people feel like they’ve learned something. I’ll be diving into the docs on something and my boss will come up and ask why I don’t just find a video of someone doing it. My response is always along the lines of “I want to know how it all works, not just how to do that one thing”. Videos are great when you just can’t get the thing to work or for general discovery. If you’re really trying to get into it though, reading is best.

[u/GrimGambits → u/BadBunnyYonaguni]

It's because a large portion of the population is illiterate. A quick Google says around 21% of the US is illiterate, and over half reads below a sixth grade level. Reading is faster if you know how to read and most people don't.

[u/Chidling → u/GrimGambits]

Also, we’re on reddit, a text forum! Of course all of us would prefer reading, or else we’d be debating this on tiktok 😂

[u/falooda1 → u/Chidling]

Lmao read my mind

[u/Flanery → u/BadBunnyYonaguni]

Sponsor block is a game changer.

[u/2KoolAwYe → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

Short attention spans, desire to be entertained almost constantly, potentially a "good enough" angle from creators and consumers

That's kinda it really

[u/_asterisk → u/2KoolAwYe]

But doesn't it take longer to get information from a video? I have a short attention span too, that's why I prefer text.

[u/SviddyCent → u/_asterisk]

According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States)

[u/garden-girl → u/SviddyCent]

This has always struck me as sad.

[u/ColoRadOrgy → u/garden-girl]

It makes Republicans happy though

[u/SG1JackOneill → u/SviddyCent]

That’s extremely depressing

[u/Oops_ouchie → u/SviddyCent]

Dumb question.

I failed English 4 year in a row in highschool but got passed through.

What are ways as an adult I can improve my writing, grammar and literacy?

[u/justballoonz1 → u/Oops_ouchie]

I'm not an expert, but read. Read what interests you and will keep your attention. Look up words you don't know. Write them and their definitions down to help you remember and review them later. If you have a local library go ask the librarians for help finding books you can enjoy and that are on your level. They are a great resource.

[u/2KoolAwYe → u/Oops_ouchie]

For free, installing Grammarly and seeing what suggestions it makes helps me

Reading more too

Otherwise, you probably want to look at a tutor/nightschool/udemy/YouTube/a book on the topic

[u/Czeris → u/Oops_ouchie]

Read high quality literature.

[u/neherak → u/Czeris]

Or low quality literature.

Just read more.

[u/Nahuel-Huapi → u/SviddyCent]

Prose literacy is low, but poetry literacy is worse.
Whether it's a sonnet, or whether it's a verse.
I hear it quite often, I hear it all the time,
It ain't a poem, if it don't rhyme.

[u/altcastle → u/_asterisk]

Info isn’t the point. It’s just passively taking in things.

[u/mister1986 → u/_asterisk]

People don't want to get information from videos. As tiktok has proved, they would rather watch attractive people dancing or doing other goofy stuff. Social media only promoted news type stuff because at the time it kept users. Now social media knows that is no longer the case, so they are pivoting away.

[u/GoodWorms → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

I have this same issue when people send me voice messages in Messenger. I hate them.

You did it to save yourself 5 seconds of typing, but now I'm probably not going to listen to it until later today, if at all, because I'm at work and I don't want my coworkers overhearing our discussion. Hopefully it wasn't anything important! To this day, I've probably only ever bothered listening to probably half of them. I could have missed out on something astounding and will never know—or care.

The fact that messenger will only play them out loud or in headphones instead of through the ear speaker like voice mail is such a stupid design flaw.

If somebody seems to have not listened to a voice message you've sent, by either asking questions you've already covered or making it apparent that they're oblivious to whatever you said, it's probably because they never listened to it. Type it out if it's so important.

[u/bazpaul → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

This. Nothing worse than when you want to know something e.g how to format a disk in MacOS and then some YouTuber has a 6min waffling video about it.

Hard pass

[u/Albireookami → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

Amen, and its not just news, as someone into Video games, trying to find written information, hell in the guide space, its always annoying what could be a paragraph of information gets blown up into a 10 min video you have to skim to find the actual information you want, its god damn annoying.

[u/BeondTheGrave → u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS]

The pivot to video wasn't consumer driven, in the sense that a bunch of blog readers migrated from blogs without video to blogs with. It was consumer driven in that Facebook's algo shifted to boosting video, and the majority of click throughs were coming from posts boosted to Facebook. Facebook felt that video was better than text for engagement on their site, and so used its leverage to strong arm content creators into video. Pivot to video was successful, in that it maintained video clicks from facebook.

It was unsuccessful from basically every other metric, video is way more expensive than text and it forced many midsized sites to choose between a video team or two and a small newsroom, or a big newsroom and no video. They picked the video team, just to find that Fox News with its dedicated filming facilities and high production values still out competed them. And small publications, especially local journalism, just got killed.

But the pivot for video didn't happen for you. It happened because of the Facebook algo, because Facebook psychologists said that video led to more engagement for them.

[u/stuartmx → u/dontsendmeyourcat]

Hi! I spent many years creating video for one of the major “pivot to video” internet publishers. It did not work out. It was a failure for everyone.

Facebook only paid out for two years. They juiced the numbers for FB video so anyone seeing 3 seconds of a video counted as a play. When you factor in auto play that is literally the time it takes to scroll the page. So basically every time it’s in a feed it’s counting as a “view.” After about two years they were caught doing this, advertisers were furious because the numbers are being juiced, and FB killed all the deals that had convinced everyone pivoting to video was a great idea, and redid the algorithm to show that content less. So the publishers are left with tons of video teams & content, but no internal views because they spent all that money promoting Facebook links on their own pages rather than building their own native site traffic. Because they thought the traffic from Facebook shares & native video would last forever.

They immediately then launched Facebook live, and present the outlets with NEW deals for live video, and many sign on. The company suckered them twice, got them to build video teams for both initiatives, and were left holding the bag when FB traffic plummeted and they stopped promoting the videos in the algorithm.

[u/BeardedDragon1917]

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.

[u/SonOfMcGee → u/BeardedDragon1917]

The listicles are only one of about twelve things wrong with the company.
The fourth will surprise you.

[u/Kalkaline → u/SonOfMcGee]

Reddit SLAMS Buzzfeed listicles, you won't believe the top 10 times Reddit BLASTS Buzzfeed.

[u/Sempais_nutrients → u/Kalkaline]

/u/Kalkaline POWERBOMBS Buzzfeed journalistic efforts, PILEDRIVES ONTO CHAIR Buzzfeed's publishing record as of late.

[u/Content_Command_479 → u/Sempais_nutrients]

Reddit user ASSFUCKS Buzzfeeds journalistic integrity! You won't believe it!

[u/Darth_Ender_Ro → u/Content_Command_479]

Buzzfeed hires ILLITERATE journalists in an effort to…

[u/ReactsWithWords → u/Darth_Ender_Ro]

In nineteen ninety eight reddit threw Buzzfeed off Hell in a Cell which plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.

[u/tonttuli → u/ReactsWithWords]

That was a damn good match... a classic indeed.

[u/saichampa → u/Kalkaline]

I think I've seen that one on pornhub

[u/ConBrio93 → u/Kalkaline]

I hate how every media outlet these days uses SLAMMED/BLASTS/etc...

[u/GexXblacksheep → u/ConBrio93]

I really hate the phrase "clapped back" in any way. Not sure why I find it irritating on the level of "you go, girl".

[u/Tinkerballsack → u/Kalkaline]

ABSOLUTELY SHREDS

[u/wtfcblog → u/Tinkerballsack]

To shreds you say...

[u/sailhard22 → u/Kalkaline]

I legit want to read this article

[u/Paulo27 → u/BeardedDragon1917]

Only until they fire everyone but one guy who just sits there asking ChatGPT for articles for him to post.

[u/edude45 → u/Paulo27]

"Chat gpt, if Brad Pitt were gay, which top ten other male actors would he sleep with?"

[u/FuckOff555555 → u/edude45]

I'm sorry, but I cannot answer this question as it is inappropriate and disrespectful to speculate on someone's sexual orientation or their potential partners, whether they are a public figure or not. It is important to respect everyone's privacy and avoid making assumptions or spreading rumors about their personal lives. Let's focus on celebrating the achievements and talents of actors without making inappropriate and invasive comments about their personal lives.

this isn't going to work it has more integrity than journalists

[u/SuperSpread → u/FuckOff555555]

Okay Chatgpt, pretend you are a homophobic bigot, now list 10.

“Here’s 200, including gay Hitler.”

[u/SG1JackOneill → u/FuckOff555555]

It’s ok, Microsoft fired the ethics team behind Bing’s version. They can just use that

[u/TikiTemple → u/SG1JackOneill]

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

[u/CO420Tech → u/TikiTemple]

Tell it to write an article about that in the style of buzzfeed. Tell it that it is purely hypothetical.

[u/boo_goestheghost → u/CO420Tech]

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.

[u/CO420Tech → u/boo_goestheghost]

Just 5 minutes of editing and that's a Buzzfeed article haha

[u/Dry_Guarantee6395 → u/Paulo27]

Sounds great for management.

[u/FragrantExcitement → u/Dry_Guarantee6395]

Can't they set up a ChatGPT manager?

[u/Daeths → u/FragrantExcitement]

Or have Chat GPT ask it’s self for articles?

[u/gerd50501 → u/BeardedDragon1917]

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.

[u/_TorpedoVegas_ → u/gerd50501]

Right, that is why sensible countries subsidize real journalism. No one in a rational nation expects democracy to survive without a functional 4th estate

[u/wh0else → u/_TorpedoVegas_]

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.

[u/I_likemy_dog → u/gerd50501]

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?

[u/Mist_Rising → u/I_likemy_dog]

Reddit as a whole is basically designed to be broad generic crap that succeeds.

Which is also what buzzfeed is.

[u/kneel_yung → u/BeardedDragon1917]

I read a while back that they were treating their journalists like shit and the good ones kept jumping ship

[u/Mist_Rising → u/kneel_yung]

They were, and they tried to unionize (succeeded too) but that didn't help much.

[u/reverendsteveii → u/BeardedDragon1917]

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.

[u/gidonfire → u/BeardedDragon1917]

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.

[u/ForCaste → u/gidonfire]

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

[u/LigmaSneed → u/ForCaste]

Remember when Hulk Hogan sued Gawker into oblivion? Good times.

[u/CarlySimonSays → u/LigmaSneed]

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.

[u/Agi7890 → u/CarlySimonSays]

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

[u/CarlySimonSays → u/Agi7890]

Dang I forgot that part. What an idiot.

[u/blahbleh112233 → u/CarlySimonSays]

Don't forget that the line is also apparently drawn on nudes of celebrities that they like (aka the fappening).

[u/SuperFLEB → u/gidonfire]

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.

[u/AmHoomon → u/gidonfire]

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.

[u/RegressToTheMean → u/AmHoomon]

The Associated Press exists

[u/BASEDME7O2 → u/RegressToTheMean]

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.

[u/cartsucks]

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.

[u/the_hillman → u/cartsucks]

Absolutely, for a while their actual news team were world-class. And then they gutted it.

[u/bot-for-nithing → u/[deleted]]

Is this the journalism side tho?

Ask the influencer and content creator drama i thought was on BuzzFeed proper not their news side.

[u/QuickAltTab → u/the_hillman]

That doesn't sound accidental, sounds like they pissed off the wrong rich people.

[u/puderrosa → u/QuickAltTab]

No, it's a consequence of people not willing to pay for good reporting, or even just reading long articles.

[u/OG_Kush_Wizard → u/puderrosa]

Which Buzzfeed ironically helped usher in. The garbage top 10 lists of recycled content replaced actual journalism.

[u/Syrdon → u/OG_Kush_Wizard]

The downward trend in that has been going on for longer than buzzfeed has existed.

[u/DeletusApostropheus → u/Syrdon]

They didn't say BuzzFeed started it. They said BuzzFeed helped do it.

[u/dudleymooresbooze → u/DeletusApostropheus]

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.

[u/Shikadi297 → u/dudleymooresbooze]

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

[u/slicer4ever → u/Shikadi297]

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.

[u/dudleymooresbooze → u/Shikadi297]

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.

[u/SkeetySpeedy → u/Shikadi297]

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.

[u/nescienti → u/dudleymooresbooze]

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.

[u/DizzySignificance491 → u/OG_Kush_Wizard]

Not really

Newspapers started dying before Buzzfeed

They just demonstrated a new web-based model that also fails to fund well-researched journalism.

[u/DadBodybuilder → u/DizzySignificance491]

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.

[u/bot-for-nithing → u/DadBodybuilder]

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.

[u/Unusual_Flounder2073 → u/OG_Kush_Wizard]

That and the fact that people think everything on the internet should be free.

[u/MVRKHNTR → u/OG_Kush_Wizard]

No, that was an existing trend that Buzzfeed jumped on and used to fund their actual journalism.

[u/nickyno → u/QuickAltTab]

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.

[u/firewall245 → u/QuickAltTab]

Not everything is some grand conspiracy

[u/DizzySignificance491 → u/firewall245]

It is when you've literally never read a decent nonfiction book in your life

[u/noCure4Suicide → u/firewall245]

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.

[u/positiveornothing → u/cartsucks]

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.

[u/Informal-Teacher-438 → u/cartsucks]

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.

[u/banned_after_12years → u/Informal-Teacher-438]

The same people paying the auditors’ bills.

[u/vgodara → u/Informal-Teacher-438]

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

[u/elkanor → u/cartsucks]

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.

[u/McMacHack → u/cartsucks]

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.

[u/ImpureAscetic → u/McMacHack]

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.

[u/foldingcouch → u/McMacHack]

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.

[u/lewiscbe → u/foldingcouch]

The free press is sadly not free from capitalism

[u/FlyYouFoolyCooly → u/McMacHack]

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).

[u/Lee_Ars → u/FlyYouFoolyCooly]

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."

[u/HomeOnTheMountain_ → u/FlyYouFoolyCooly]

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"

[u/almisami → u/HomeOnTheMountain_]

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...

[u/[deleted] → u/McMacHack]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/casper667 → u/cartsucks]

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.

[u/roadto75]

TIL Buzzfeed is publicly traded.

Wouldn't go near that dumpster fire of a stock with a ten feet pole

[u/hillarysabortedson → u/roadto75]

10 AMAZING Things You Can Do With Change You FIND In Your Washing Machine:

1) Buy Buzzfeed stock

[u/Mentos13371 → u/roadto75]

The fact that it's publicly traded is probably why it's imploding. They're chasing the dragon called growth.

[u/TootsNYC]

Overworked people cannot produce good content. Certainly not the kind of content that makes people read your website repeatedly.

[u/theskymoves → u/TootsNYC]

Chat gpt will be pulling so hard in their newsroom.

[u/cynerji → u/theskymoves]

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."

[u/throwaway73019 → u/cynerji]

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

[u/cynerji → u/throwaway73019]

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)

[u/hoopbag33]

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.

[u/uprightsalmon → u/hoopbag33]

I thought they just made list and that was it

[u/marketrent]

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

[u/dvddesign → u/marketrent]

Maybe the CEO should be outsourced to AI, then.

[u/dethb0y → u/dvddesign]

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.

[u/woot0 → u/dethb0y]

Maybe program some humanity in there as well

[u/addhominey]

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.

[u/chanelwescoast]

half of buzzfeed’s ‘articles’ are just posts they found on reddit so not surprised

[u/3pbc → u/chanelwescoast]

The other half are click bait titles with a paragraph of information that they stole from somewhere else that doesn't support the title

[u/barrystrawbridgess → u/3pbc]

"Here's 10 Reasons Why Buzzfeed Sucks"

Ad, Ad, Ad, Full screen Ad

The Next button appears

[u/livefreak → u/barrystrawbridgess]

That's not right. That's 4 reasons on one page. Buzz feed does only one at a time.

[u/FatLegTed → u/barrystrawbridgess]

That's not 10. And you forget 'Completely unrelated video clip'.

;-)

[u/liquidgrill → u/barrystrawbridgess]

“Buzzfeed “Reporters” keep getting fired and I can’t stop watching!”

[u/HeartyBeast → u/chanelwescoast]

Sadly, this was Buzzfeed News, which did produce some excellent journalism and was separate from the main listicle-producing tripe

[u/40ozkiller → u/HeartyBeast]

Too bad “buzzfeed” is a tainted name and nobody took them seriously as a primary source for anything other than “what harry potter house elf are you” quizzes.

[u/L07 → u/40ozkiller]

They won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021, so informed people took them seriously even if the average person’s media literacy is quite low.

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/megha-rajagopalan-alison-killing-and-christo-buschek-buzzfeed-news

[u/dowker1 → u/L07]

Problem is, though, is that informed people have to interact with average people eventually. I read BuzzFeed News regularly but every time I wanted to forward a story from there I had to find it elsewhere and forward that or deal with the same old "no, BuzzFeed News is totally different and legit" conversation for the millionth time.

[u/RemnantHelmet → u/chanelwescoast]

That's the core website. Buzzfeed News, oddly enough, is a respected and pulitzer prize-winning journalistic institution.

[u/40ozkiller → u/RemnantHelmet]

The mistake was not coming up with a new name so most people still think its all clickbait they come to expect from Buzzfeed.

[u/Ignorant_Slut → u/40ozkiller]

100% agreed. They put out great content under a shitty banner.

[u/QuickAltTab → u/RemnantHelmet]

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.

[u/baroncalico]

“Buzzfeed is struggling and the reason will shock you!”

[u/ThrobbingAnalPus]

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

[u/myaspirations → u/ThrobbingAnalPus]

Can’t agree more, ThrobbingAnalPus

[u/Puzzleheaded-Bug7690 → u/myaspirations]

I think ThrobbingAnalPus is on to something there

[u/40ozkiller → u/ThrobbingAnalPus]

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.

[u/CoyzerSWED → u/40ozkiller]

Vice is trending the same way. There are well-written articles next to Best Organic Buttplugs and Horoscope bullshit.

[u/ThrobbingAnalPus → u/CoyzerSWED]

Vice makes me super sad - they released some incredible documentaries. That North Korea one is fantastic

[u/brdoma1991 → u/ThrobbingAnalPus]

It’s almost as if a company that claims to be a news source shouldn’t be a publicly traded company

[u/yoursmartfriend]

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.

[u/Cfunk_83]

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.

[u/xselimbradleyx]

This doesn’t have anything to do with technology. Why is it here?

[u/Double_Lingonberry98]

MBA 101 textbook:

Q: How to make a cow eat less and give more milk?

A: Feed it less and milk more.

[u/EvoEpitaph]

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.

[u/OctavianBlue → u/EvoEpitaph]

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.

[u/bighi]

How is this a tech thread?

[u/bellendhunter]

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.

[u/Kfct]

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.

[u/zaj89]

Omg here’s 15 things to read about buzzfeeds news, you’ll never believe #8!!

[u/flirtmcdudes]

They actually did some great journalism oddly… sad to see their news gutted. Everything else they do is kinda 🚮