BuzzFeed is closing its Pulitzer Prize-winning BuzzFeed News operation in a consolidation aimed at improving the company’s balance sheet. “We are reducing our workforce by approximately 15 percent today across our business, content, tech and admin teams, and beginning the process of closing BuzzFeed News,” BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti explained in a memo to staff on Thursday. The layoffs will affect about 180 employees. The company will continue operating the meme-driven BuzzFeed.com while HuffPost, acquired in 2020 from Verizon, will carry the mantle for news reporting.

Founded in 2006, the digital-first company initially focused on clickbait, launching the news division in 2011. BuzzFeed News earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination for investigative reporting in 2017, and won in the international reporting category in 2021.

Last summer, the company ignited a firestorm with explosive revelations about TikTok helping the Chinese government access U.S. user data, triggering Congressional hearings.

“Though the news arm leant credibility to BuzzFeed — which had previously best been known for viral, entertaining content — it was never a profit driver, and relied on its parent company’s ability to keep it afloat,” writes Axios, noting that after the IPO “keeping the news division alive became a liability with shareholders.”

While many traditional media companies wound up copying some of BuzzFeed’s tactics, notably an “obsession with its readers’ habits, with editors glued to online dashboards created by companies like Chartbeat and Parse.ly to measure audience behavior,” it was ultimately Big Tech firms like Meta, Alphabet and ByteDance that were able to monetize the strategy, writes The New York Times.

The company has become “a stark reminder that news organizations risked becoming obsolete if they didn’t focus on developing multiple ways to make money,” per NYT.

The declining advertising maket has put a drag on the earnings reports of corporate titans even as it wracks the new media industry. “Vox laid off 7 percent of its staff in January, blaming the uncertain economic climate,” while “Vice, which has struggled financially for years, is desperately seeking a buyer,” reports NYT, adding that “Insider announced that it was laying off 10 percent of its staff” last week.

Related:
BuzzFeed News Is Dead: Who Is Really to Blame?, Slate, 4/20/23
The Internet of the 2010s Ended Today, The Atlantic, 4/20/23
RIP, BuzzFeed News. Who’s Next?, Vox, 4/20/23