BuzzFeed News is shutting down

BuzzFeed News is shutting down.

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced the move to staffers in an email Thursday, writing the company is unable to fund its news division “as a standalone organization.”

Peretti said he was slow to accept that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter would not provide the distribution to support “premium, free journalism purpose-built for social media.”

“I made the decision to overinvest in BuzzFeed News because I love the work and mission so much,“ Peretti wrote.

BuzzFeed purchased HuffPost from Verizon in 2020, and Peretti said there would be jobs available there for some of the news reporters impacted by the closure. About 60 people at BuzzFeed News are affected, according to the New York Times.

“We will concentrate our news efforts in HuffPost,” Peretti wrote in the memo.

BuzzFeed News launched in 2011 under the leadership of Ben Smith, who recently founded the online news organization Semafor. BuzzFeed News is probably best known for publishing a Russian dossier featuring unsubstantiated claims made about former President Donald Trump. It also won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 for its coverage of the Chinese government’s mass detention of Uyghurs.

“I’m heartsick about it,” Smith told the Washington Post. “I do think it marks the end of the marriage between news and social media. "

The company’s main website, known for its online quizzes, will continue to operate. Overall, BuzzFeed is laying off about 15% of its employees, about 180 people.

BuzzFeed’s stock price closed down almost 20% on Thursday to 75 cents a share.

As its sign off, BuzzFeed News staffers sent a push notification referencing a 2019 story it published about Blippi, a YouTube entertainer popular among children.

“BuzzFeed news is logging off with a reminder that blippi pooped on his friend,” the notification said.