12 ms·

Looks like this is the last time I’ll have to point out on HN that BuzzFeed News was the “serious news” side of BuzzFeed, not the main listicle side of the busi

• spacemadness 4y ago
  It’s a pretty scathing omen for the ad run internet that this is the part that shuts down while their flaming dumpsterfire of a content mill lives on.
  • iamerroragent 4y ago
    Content mill runs rage content all day too. Unfortunately those get eyes and thus revenue. More a comment on us as a species than anything else. On an individual to individual basis we might recognize bad content meant to feed off of our base emotional instincts versus content meant for accuracy and to inform. However collectively it appears there's more of us that rather get sucked into the rage content than try for objective or accurate reporting. This mirrors the transition of television News from not needed to be profitable to needing to be profitable. Look at the success of cable news.
    • spacemadness 4y ago
      Our ids tend to run wild on the internet, so it’s not surprising. It is extremely disappointing that there is always someone willing to take advantage, but that is the story of humanity I suppose. My hope is somehow we are capable of creating something better than this.
    • klodolph 4y ago
      > More a comment on us as a species than anything else. I think this is less of a comment about us as a species and more a comment about the economic systems that we have in place. Our economic systems used to support journalism.
      • Tyrek 4y ago
        Our economic systems used to be very bad at scaling. They also used to be very bad at incentivizing value-add economic activity. Which system do you want?
        • bcrosby95 4y ago
          I don't want society to develop in the most economically advanced driveling pile of shit that ever existed.
      • walleeee 4y ago
        "it's just human nature" can be a powerfully self-fulfilling prophecy We ought to exercise what agency we have in shaping social systems, but not only this, we need to remind ourselves regularly that we do have agency in order to exercise it
        • JohnFen 4y ago
          "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." -- Alice Walker
    • joshspankit 4y ago
      Is that just going to disappear when AI is so good at milling rage content that no publishers can compete? Why would someone choose to wade through a listicle when they can get their rage unfiltered and on tap?
  • next_xibalba 4y ago
    > the ad run internet What is the alternative? And I do mean an alternative that would incentivize and yield the same creative explosion we've seen with the web over the last 30 years.
    • notacoward 4y ago
      I challenge your axiom that there has been an ad-fueled creative explosion. Yes, there has been an explosion in volume and perhaps in drama, but creativity specifically? Above and beyond what already existed in free, OSS, or subscription based media? A return to other models might mean less profits, fewer ultra-wealthy founders and VCs, but I'm not at all convinced that it would lead to less creativity.
      • dageshi 4y ago
        There were a huge amounts of niche sites written to answer questions on niche topics. All with the aim of being helpful enough to get google to send them traffic they could monetise with ads. Many of these sites were peoples hobbies which they could further explore or even dedicate themselves to based on the income from their website. This wouldn't have happened without ads, no other alternative has ever been found that got the author of a website paid while not directly charging the reader. The web with ads is immensely more useful than the web without, hell without ads there probably wouldn't even be a search engine to find anything on the web and without a search engine nobody would be able to find anything of any use.
        • notacoward 4y ago
          > All with the aim of being helpful enough to get google to send them traffic All? That's such a ridiculous generalization that it's practically a lie. If that's all you remember, then I suggest that your experience has been too short and/or limited. Before Google even existed there were tons of sites that were there for reasons other than ads. (I've been involved with the internet since before it became public BTW, plus Usenet and other things before that, so I have some perspective.) Even after Google became the ad behemoth it is today, plenty of sites flourished while having nothing to do with it. I had my own blog from 2000 until last year, moderately well known in some circles, but neither I nor most of the other bloggers I interacted with had anything to do with ads. There were forums without ads, e-commerce sites without ads (not counting their own), etc. The current situation, where everything seems to be a walled garden or infested with ads, is pretty recent ... and even now, there are plenty of sites that decline to play that game. Like the one we're having this conversation on.
  • mysterydip 4y ago
    The reason will shock you!
    • geephroh 4y ago
      [golf clap]
  • rsynnott 4y ago
    To some extent, proper journalism, especially investigative journalism, was always a sort of loss-making luxury even for traditional media. You don’t want your ad beside the story breaking Watergate, because people might associate you with Watergate. You want it with the fluff; sports or gossip or soft local news or whatever depending on demographic. The main change is that web media seems far more comfortable than traditional with being _just_ fluff, so the journalism is increasingly endangered.
• ricardobeat 4y ago
  Ah, that's a shame. I came in here thinking I would celebrate.
  • danso 4y ago
    Well the future of cost-cutting BuzzFeed overall is far from solid: https://futurism.com/buzzfeed-publishing-articles-by-ai https://futurism.com/buzzfeed-publishing-articles-by-ai > Earlier this year, when BuzzFeed announced plans to start publishing AI-assisted content, its CEO Jonah Peretti promised the tech would be held to a high standard... > This month, we noticed that with none of the fanfare of Peretti's multiple interviews about the quizzes, BuzzFeed quietly started publishing fully AI-generated articles that are produced by non-editorial staff — and they sound a lot like the content mill model that Peretti had promised to avoid... > The 40 or so articles, all of which appear to be SEO-driven travel guides, are comically bland and similar to one another. Check out these almost-copied lines: > "Now, I know what you're thinking - 'Cape May? What is that, some kind of mayonnaise brand?'" in an article about Cape May, in New Jersey. > "Now I know what you're thinking - 'but Caribbean destinations are all just crowded resorts, right?'" in an article about St Maarten, in the Caribbean. > "Now, I know what you're thinking. Puerto Rico? Isn't that where all the cruise ships go?" in an article about San Juan, in Puerto Rico.
    • bee_rider 4y ago
      Now, I know what you’re thinking. AI generated listicles? But keep in mind that human written listicles tend to be just as bland.
  • rendall 4y ago
    Same
  • scythe 4y ago
    I can add to that doom and gloom: >The company-wide layoffs and elimination of the news operation come just months after BuzzFeed had laid off 12 percent of its staff in a cost-cutting measure. That penny-pinching move, which Peretti said was necessary due to an “ongoing audience shift to vertical video,”
• nailer 4y ago
  Inside scoop is that Janine Gibson (who handled all the war crimes Assange uncovered as was editor of The GuardianUS) was supposed to be the editor of The Graun (Guardian) after Alan Rusbridger stepped down, but wasn't well liked. They gave the job to Kath Viner instead, Janine took her bat and (James) Ball with her and ran Buzzfeed News. All second hand of course.
• thecosas 4y ago
  This lead me to https://www.data-liberation-project.org/ https://www.data-liberation-project.org/ which looks pretty great.
  • gaws 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • tivert 4y ago
      > A shame JSV is a total creep. I take JSV means Jeremy Singer-Vine (https://www.jsvine.com/ https://www.jsvine.com/). Why do you think he's a "total creep"?
      • UweSchmidt 4y ago
        Online communities should cultivate some discipline around those crowd-sourced background checks. Is the issue relevant to the project or topic? Where is the explanation and evidence? Can only people with a perfect record do anything now? Maybe the intention is to make half of HN go search for "<name> and <accusation>" to try and get the accusation auto-complete in future searches for <name>?
• 908B64B197 4y ago
  Linking to BuzzFeed always has been an uphill battle because of it's association to the, well, more light-hearted part of the business. At the same time, it's sad to see yet another an independent news outlet go. As the recent meltdown over the (well deserved) Government Sponsored labels on Twitter showed, it's becoming increasingly difficult to run independent news when a lot of your competitors are state-backed, meaning they don't actually have to turn a profit.
• AzzieElbab 4y ago
  Walter Duranty also won a Pulitzer for covering up Holodomor in Ukraine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty?wprov=sfti1
  • stametseater 4y ago
    Industry awards are pure wankery, particularly in media/publishing. Why are people so sure such awards confer credibility? Few industries are as self-celebrating as journalism, they shamelessly self-suck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Dies_in_Darkness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Dies_in_Darkness When industries like this give themselves awards, it's meaningless noise.
    • AzzieElbab 4y ago
      but pultzier was not always an industry award. back in the duranty days washingtone post directly contradicted nyt.
  • AzzieElbab 4y ago
    Interesting. I write many comments I expect to get downvoted. This wasn't one of them. Lots of Holodomor fans here.
    • gpvos 4y ago
      Don't comment about being downvoted. A downvoted comment with substance often will receive compensatory upvotes.
      • AzzieElbab 4y ago
        Not concerned about it, surprised
• codeflo 4y ago
  Well, that’s a colossal failure of branding if I ever saw one. Seriously, what were they thinking?
  • jandrese 4y ago
    This is what everybody asked and it was never clear why they didn't differentiate the brand more.
    • tivert 4y ago
      I think the idea was to use BuzzFeed News to elevate the BuzzFeed brand.
      • throwaway894345 4y ago
        Seems like they could have just pivoted buzzfeed.com to actual journalism and stop doing the culture war tabloid stuff altogether? Instead buzzfeednews.com links to buzzfeed.com all over the place with no obvious distinction between news and gossip https://www.buzzfeednews.com/topic/twitter https://www.buzzfeednews.com/topic/twitter
        • jandrese 4y ago
          The tabloid gossip and listicles paid the bills for the journalism. Plus they would still have the problem where people see "Buzzfeed" and immediately turn away because they have a preconceived notion of what kind of content they produce.
      • jandrese 4y ago
        That's not how credibility works. It is very easy to lose credibility but creating it is a long and arduous process. One credible brand tied to a noncredible brand leaves you with two noncredible brands.
        • tivert 4y ago
• throwaway894345 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • dralley 4y ago
    1619 was a series of essays written by different people. Many were very good and some were terrible.
  • aww_dang 4y ago
    Pulitzer was a tabloid publisher and politician. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer#:~:text=which%20won%20over%20readers%20with%20sensationalism%2C%20sex%2C%20crime%20and%20graphic%20horrors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer#:~:text=which%... Perhaps the most infamous Pulitzer prize went to Walter Duranty for his efforts to cover up the Holodomor in the New York Times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty#Literary_awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty#Literary_awards
• gjsman-1000 4y ago
  I'm not going to miss them. The News Division put their foot into bad journalism repeatedly. For starters, FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), a left-wing watchdog with Progressive right in their website title, denounced BuzzFeed News' coverage of Obama during his term as "almost uniformly uncritical and often sycophantic," and even "creepy" for literally having only one negative article about him in their assessment out of one hundred random samples from Google (though they specifically call out the majority assessed were News Division, not BuzzFeed the tabloid). Their top tech reporter, Ryan Broderick, was fired after plagiarizing for almost a decade, and basically the entire time he was working there. And publishing the Steele Dossier as though it was actual news at first, even though even Wikipedia says many of the statements in it were false, was also a low point; even the Washington Post in 2017 said it was bad journalism. So bad actually, that the editor of BuzzFeed felt the need to publish an opinion piece in The Atlantic today (yes, today, 6 years later) defending his actions. Another Pulitzer-prize winning journalist (Barry Meier) called the whole event a "media clusterfuck of epic proportions." FAIR: https://fair.org/home/buzzfeeds-obama-coverage-is-99-percent-uncritical-and-borderline-creepy/ https://fair.org/home/buzzfeeds-obama-coverage-is-99-percent... Broderick: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/markschoofs/a-note-to-our-readers https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/markschoofs/a-note-to-o... Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/01/10/buzzfeeds-ridiculous-rationale-for-publishing-the-trump-russia-dossier/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/01/... and https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/11/the-problem-of-too-much-information/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/11/th... Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/ben-smith-trump-dossier-buzzfeed/673794/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/ben-smith-... Meier: https://bookshop.org/p/books/spooked-the-trump-dossier-black-cube-and-the-rise-of-private-spies-barry-meier/14728521?ean=9780062950680 https://bookshop.org/p/books/spooked-the-trump-dossier-black...
  • openknot 4y ago
    BuzzFeed News also lost credibility to me during the Trump administration, when the Mueller team publicly disputed the outlet's report on a Cohen-Trump story. From The New Yorker [0]: "The story was sourced to “two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.” However, once it was published, other federal officials spoke up. Mueller’s office released a rare public statement, saying that “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.” BuzzFeed, and its editor, Ben Smith, have stood by the story." [...] "I recently spoke by phone with Leopold about his reporting of this story and his other work on the Trump-Russia affair. Leopold, who was previously at Vice News, is considered an expert at using Freedom of Information Act requests and was part of a team of BuzzFeed reporters who were Pulitzer Prize finalists in 2018. He has also been the subject of controversy. In 2002, Salon removed an article from its Web site after Leopold was accused of inaccuracy and plagiarism. Four years later, he incorrectly reported that Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff, had been indicted in the investigation into the outing of the C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame. (Leopold was open about past substance abuse and mental health issues in a 2006 memoir, “News Junkie.”)" I still respect the outlet's FIFA story, but BuzzFeed News remained a step below mainstream outlets with investigations like The Washington Post. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/a-buzzfeed-reporter-explains-his-controversial-reporting-on-michael-cohen-and-donald-trump https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/a-buzzfeed-reporter-e...
• instagraham 4y ago
  They did some fantastic journalism. Completely changed my view of Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed in general gets flak but to people in the industry, it was quite clear that they: 1 - Understood the medium 2 - For a brief while, nailed the art of messaging within it
  • dmreedy 4y ago
    I'm not sure that that should insulate them from criticism? In fact I think much of the criticism towards Buzzfeed is precisely around how good they were at the medium, and what they used that medium for/what that medium could be used for at all (to take the McLuhan angle). To put it more obnoxiously and splashily, Goebbels was also a master of his medium. And it's a shame Buzzfeed news needed that substrate to survive on.
  • oceanplexian 4y ago
    They are the ones who published and relentlessly pushed the now-debunked Steele Dossier, aka 'Pee Tape". They went out of their way to spread misinformation and create political divisions for clicks at every opportunity. RIP Buzfeed but you won't be missed.
    • kid64 4y ago
      The concept of debunking doesn't apply here, outside of the right-wing media bubble. The author estimated that 75% of the information was likely accurate. Is that what you think was debunked?
      • briandear 4y ago
        But none of it was accurate. A true fact-finding organization never assumes truth but they dig into finding it.
        • kid64 4y ago
          Do you know which organization you're referring to? I suggest you read the reporting from the major outlets at the time, it's purely factual information about the dossier.
• ar_lan 4y ago
  I really don't know why they kept the BuzzFeed branding. I intentionally _ignored_ anything that came from BuzzFeed News as likely tabloid-esque news because of the branding, and I honestly do not think that's the wrong perspective to take. We have to filter out noise in some ways, and BuzzFeed has made no considerable effort to position themselves as a platform worth listening to.
  • gspencley 4y ago
    I agree with you and take it one leg further: I didn't even know there was a difference between "BuzzFeed News" and the rest of Buzzfeed. As in, my first reaction to the article was "What else do they do?" I thought Buzzfeed was online "tabloid journalism" like The National Inquirer.
    • Lazare 4y ago
      No, hilariously Buzzfeed News was top tier investigative journalism, and at their best was as good as anything done by NYT or WaPo. The business model seemed to be "what if we have truly great investigative journalism, funded by clickbait listicales that we, inexplicablly, use the same brand for". It's easy to mock the branding decisions they made (and not entirely unfair) but it's still a loss to the internet to see them go.
    • reportgunner 4y ago
      I too did not know Buzzfeed news is not Buzzfeed, but I would even go as far as to doubt that it really is different than Buzzfeed.
    • portmanteur 4y ago
      Buzzfeed News _was_ tabloid journalism. They published demonstrably fake news, most notably the infamous Steele Dossier. Buzzfeed News claimed the document was "unverified," when in reality it was verifiably false. Every other major media outlet had access to this document and refused to publish it because its claims were unsubstantiated. But not Buzzfeed News -- skepticism of this outlet's seriousness was completely warranted.
• mynameishere 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • kej 4y ago
    Their Pulitzer [0] was for this series [1] about China's detention of Uighur Muslims. [0] https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/megha-rajagopalan-alison-killing-and-christo-buschek-buzzfeed-news https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/megha-rajagopalan-alison-ki... [1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-internment-camps-xinjiang-uighurs-muslims https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-inter...
  • adrianmonk 4y ago
    No, it was for investigating the Chinese government's mass detention of Muslims: https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/megha-rajagopalan-alison-killing-and-christo-buschek-buzzfeed-news https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/megha-rajagopalan-alison-ki...
• AmericanChopper 4y ago
  Could be the last time I have to point out that a tabloid news outlet will always (and rightly so) lack credibility, even if they attempt to create a “serious news” department, and hire a few actually good journalists. BuzzFeed News has about as much credibility as the McDonalds salad.
• thestevesie 4y ago
  Just because a news outlet received a couple of awards does not mean that it was an overall quality outlet. That is a terrible metric and your recursive citation really shows how poor your judgement is in general. Bottom line is that Buzzfeed news was a far left rag. The world will be better of with less polarizing news outlets.
  • positron6000 4y ago
    what news outlets do you read?
  • brucethemoose2 4y ago
    Even if that was true (and I don't think it is), they broke some great stories and I would argue they were still a service to the world. I have no problem with extremist sites doing partisan hit pieces if they are good, worthy hit pieces.
• briandear 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • rc_mob 4y ago
    you complain about partisan garbage and then link to the partisan garbage at heritage.org interesting tactic
  • bee_rider 4y ago
    Interesting that left-wing partisan rags tend to go out of business while right-wing partisan rags do fine.
• throwaway202303 4y ago
  Journalism awards are total bullshit. Look at the Pulitzers given out for the investigations into Trump and Russia and made up Critical Race Theory. This polk award for exposing right wing misinformation does not mention the suppression of the Hunter Biden story which the faithful mainstream media, including Buzzfeed news, decided to censor.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • mjmsmith 4y ago
    It's unfortunate that you weren't able to throw another election with a last-minute non-story, but it might be time to get over it.
    • throwaway202303 4y ago
      lol it may well have changed the outcome of the election and it was a real story by any objective measure. if trumps children had photographic and documented evidence of federal crimes and picking up money from corrupt regimes around the world, we all know the coverage would have been different.
• iudqnolq 4y ago
  You can move on to pointing out Teen Vogue. They've done some excellent serious coverage, including about abortion.
  • local_crmdgeon 4y ago
    They have an obsession with anal which is ... a lot. I get that they're pivoting, but the "anal and abortion" magazine probably shouldn't be targeting the underage.
  • astrange 4y ago
    Do any teens actually read it now? It seems like it's just another one of the online news media that have all changed to being exactly the same content written by highly neurotic people living in NYC.
• throwaway202303 4y ago
  Here’s an example of fake news with a touch of racism https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/popeyes-chicken-sandwich-man-fatally-stabbed-maryland https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/popeyes-... The family followed up and said this was nothing to do with a fried chicken sandwich. They did not correct the story (apart from to correct the location of the store which was also wrong).
• skeeter2020 4y ago
  Could you imagine if you're an actual journalist, with integrity and all that comes with the title, and you're now being offered a job at BuzzFeed or HuffPost? Talk about a true value test...
• pmarreck 4y ago
  > BuzzFeed News was the “serious news” side of BuzzFeed, not the main listicle side of the business I just learned this from your comment. Sounds like something I would have appreciated. Unfortunately, the "BuzzFeed" in the name likely acted as negative-marketing, here.
• flappyeagle 4y ago
  Looks like this is the last time I point out that this was always brand-laundering. So whenever buzzfeed is mentioned someone welll-akchuallys “buzzfeed news is a serious news outlet tho”.
• mehlmao 4y ago
  Every time I see 'Buzzfeed News' come up I remember this Onion piece: 'Kidnapped Journalist Forced To Explain To ISIS Captors What BuzzFeed News Is' https://www.theonion.com/kidnapped-journalist-forced-to-explain-to-isis-captors-1819579374 https://www.theonion.com/kidnapped-journalist-forced-to-expl...
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• tenpies 4y ago
  > they won a Pulitzer in 2021 for International Reporting The team that won it is also very interesting: - Megha Rajagopalan, probably the only one that is a journalist by profession. She left for the NYT [1] - Alison Killing, an architecture and urban planning investigator [2] - Christo Buschek, a data and computation investigator [3] It was such an interesting mix of disciplines and expertises, and is reflected in the award for reporting in international affairs:: For a series of clear and compelling stories that used satellite imagery and architectural expertise, as well as interviews with two dozen former prisoners, to identify a vast new infrastructure built by the Chinese government for the mass detention of Muslims. [4] Worth checking out, although it is from that era when web sites made your mouse wheel overheat from scrolling: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/fincen-files https://www.buzzfeednews.com/fincen-files --- [1] https://www.nytco.com/press/the-new-york-times-expands-international-investigations-team-in-london/ https://www.nytco.com/press/the-new-york-times-expands-inter... [2] Technically "geospatial investigator", but I am going off her own description based on her web site https://killingarchitects.com https://killingarchitects.com [3] https://twitter.com/christo_buschek https://twitter.com/christo_buschek [4] https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/megha-rajagopalan-alison-killing-and-christo-buschek-buzzfeed-news https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/megha-rajagopalan-alison-ki...
• mancerayder 4y ago
  OK. Well it's a shame they were enmeshed with the most inane, clickbait headlines and stuff like this: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/section/celebrity https://www.buzzfeednews.com/section/celebrity Sounds like a big branding fail. Not the critics' fault for not recognizing the literary awards here. Next time don't splatter the Internet with You Won't Believe What This Celebrity Looks like Now! Here's a headline from today: "Victoria Justice Addressed The “Stupid” Rumor That She Was “Jealous” Of Ariana Grande During Their Time On “Victorious” Years After That “I Think We ALL” Meme Went Viral And the exerpt: “This is so dumb. Ten years later. How is this even a story? This is so stupid.”" I can't tell if I'm reading satire anymore.