4 ms·

Buzzfeed the site and Buzzfeed journalism are separate departments. The latter is very high quality despite the parent brand's reputation.

NormMalvo 8y ago
Buzzfeed journalism is far from very high quality. It shouldn’t even be called journalism. It’s storytelling. They take huge liberties to leave out information that doesn’t fit their intended narrative. - Someone with first hand knowledge
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  Can you list some journalistic outlets that don't do this? Because I can probably find articles by whatever that outlet is that mangle stories to fit business, political, ideological, and other interests. Even when unintentional, stories that depend on complex information are often dumbed-down and result in incomplete, inaccurate narrative. Not to mention the benefit of hindsight, and important sources whose additions or subtractions substantially change the result.
  - NormMalvo 8y ago
    NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, National Public Radio, Los Angeles Times, to name a few.
    - peterwwillis 8y ago
      The Chronicle is the only outlet where I could not find clear examples of the biases I listed, but obviously they'll be biased towards certain reporting of news about academia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Criticism_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Criticism_a... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#Criticism_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#Criticism_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal#Editorial_page_and_political_stance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal#Editor... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times#Other_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times#Other_contro... These are just the "big controversies". They all have stories which slant in particular directions as benefits the paper, its owners, writers and editors.
  - sadris 8y ago
    The Federalist
  - htdggtydg 8y ago
    Can you list any journalistic outlets that have a CEO that openly talks about how they only publish information that fits a venn-diagram of "What Do People Care About" and "What is the Brand Message"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pr-s-6dEEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pr-s-6dEEk Before anyone starts claiming this only happens to BuzzFeed and not BuzzFeed News, there's plenty of interviews of him discussing how there should not be any separation of editorial oversight and marketing as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE9WWF85Zq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE9WWF85Zq4
    - peterwwillis 8y ago
      Journalistic outlets don't typically have CEOs because they never make enough money. They're owned by other companies or rich people, and have other companies that actually generate the revenue, and there's something like a CEO that lords over both that has to balance the making-money part with the journalism part. The only "journalism" that doesn't suffer from bias are ones that never have to worry about money... so basically, school newspapers.
SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
Didn’t they just have their faces rubbed in bad journalism last month when they made some claim about Trump that was so ridiculously untrue that Mueller made a public statement saying it was factually incorrect? [0] No. I reject the notion that Buzzfeed News is on any level professional. I accept that they work on the stopped-clock principal at best. [0] reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1PD01J
- eridius 8y ago
  Nope. From your own link: > “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,” Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller office, said in the statement. This is a very carefully-constructed statement. Note how it doesn't actually say BuzzFeed was wrong. It just says specific statements and characterization are "not accurate", but doesn't elaborate on what statements or characterizations, or on how inaccurate they are. This reads like a statement designed to placate Trump without actually refuting much of anything.
  - nailer 8y ago
    > Note how it doesn't actually say BuzzFeed was wrong. It literally says Buzzfeed's statements were inaccurate.
    - eridius 8y ago
      They were "not accurate". That's a deliberate choice of words. There's a ton of ways to say "BuzzFeed's story is wrong", and they went with the phrasing that could mean "BuzzFeed's story is 99% accurate but there were some minor errors", and then declined to elaborate on what about it was wrong even when BuzzFeed put out a public statement standing by their story and calling on the Mueller investigation to explain.

NormMalvo 8y ago

Buzzfeed journalism is far from very high quality. It shouldn’t even be called journalism. It’s storytelling. They take huge liberties to leave out information that doesn’t fit their intended narrative. - Someone with first hand knowledge

peterwwillis 8y ago
Can you list some journalistic outlets that don't do this? Because I can probably find articles by whatever that outlet is that mangle stories to fit business, political, ideological, and other interests. Even when unintentional, stories that depend on complex information are often dumbed-down and result in incomplete, inaccurate narrative. Not to mention the benefit of hindsight, and important sources whose additions or subtractions substantially change the result.
- NormMalvo 8y ago
  NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, National Public Radio, Los Angeles Times, to name a few.
  - peterwwillis 8y ago
    The Chronicle is the only outlet where I could not find clear examples of the biases I listed, but obviously they'll be biased towards certain reporting of news about academia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Criticism_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Criticism_a... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#Criticism_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#Criticism_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal#Editorial_page_and_political_stance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal#Editor... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times#Other_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times#Other_contro... These are just the "big controversies". They all have stories which slant in particular directions as benefits the paper, its owners, writers and editors.
- sadris 8y ago
  The Federalist
- htdggtydg 8y ago
  Can you list any journalistic outlets that have a CEO that openly talks about how they only publish information that fits a venn-diagram of "What Do People Care About" and "What is the Brand Message"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pr-s-6dEEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pr-s-6dEEk Before anyone starts claiming this only happens to BuzzFeed and not BuzzFeed News, there's plenty of interviews of him discussing how there should not be any separation of editorial oversight and marketing as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE9WWF85Zq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE9WWF85Zq4
  - peterwwillis 8y ago
    Journalistic outlets don't typically have CEOs because they never make enough money. They're owned by other companies or rich people, and have other companies that actually generate the revenue, and there's something like a CEO that lords over both that has to balance the making-money part with the journalism part. The only "journalism" that doesn't suffer from bias are ones that never have to worry about money... so basically, school newspapers.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

Didn’t they just have their faces rubbed in bad journalism last month when they made some claim about Trump that was so ridiculously untrue that Mueller made a public statement saying it was factually incorrect? [0] No. I reject the notion that Buzzfeed News is on any level professional. I accept that they work on the stopped-clock principal at best. [0] reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1PD01J

eridius 8y ago
Nope. From your own link: > “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,” Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller office, said in the statement. This is a very carefully-constructed statement. Note how it doesn't actually say BuzzFeed was wrong. It just says specific statements and characterization are "not accurate", but doesn't elaborate on what statements or characterizations, or on how inaccurate they are. This reads like a statement designed to placate Trump without actually refuting much of anything.
- nailer 8y ago
  > Note how it doesn't actually say BuzzFeed was wrong. It literally says Buzzfeed's statements were inaccurate.
  - eridius 8y ago
    They were "not accurate". That's a deliberate choice of words. There's a ton of ways to say "BuzzFeed's story is wrong", and they went with the phrasing that could mean "BuzzFeed's story is 99% accurate but there were some minor errors", and then declined to elaborate on what about it was wrong even when BuzzFeed put out a public statement standing by their story and calling on the Mueller investigation to explain.