In principle, BuzzFeed could just be a site with deep news coverage alongside fluff, not much different than a newspaper with real news, comics, and 'society' p

In principle, BuzzFeed could just be a site with deep news coverage alongside fluff, not much different than a newspaper with real news, comics, and 'society' pages. To some extent, Buzzfeed even managed that: their BuzzFeed News subheader has lots of award-winning content without garbage listicles. Of course, the BuzzFeed News imprint has a whole section devoted to R. Kelly right now, and seems to be aiming no higher than a CNN or USA Today mix of hard news and fluff. Add to that the occasional bout of serious hackwork written in their "real news" style, and I'm not overflowing with hope. Perhaps more to the point, it looks like this composite approach didn't actually balance the books, or we wouldn't be seeing layoffs right now.