BuzzFeed News will be shut down as part of a cost-cutting plan, the group’s management announced Thursday, sealing the death of a major figure in free online news.

BuzzFeedPhoto: Jason DeCrow/AP/Profimedia

“Today we are reducing our workforce by approximately 15% (…) and beginning the process of shutting down BuzzFeed News,” BuzzFeed co-founder and chief executive John Peretti wrote in a tweet from the entertainment website BuzzFeed.com’s news division. memo for staff.

“Layoffs are happening in almost every division,” and “we have determined that the company can no longer continue to fund BuzzFeed News as a separate entity,” he added.

15% of staff is about 180 employees for BuzzFeed, which has about 1,200 employees. BuzzFeed shares fell about 20% in New York on Thursday after the announcement.

According to the group’s management, “a number of jobs” will be created at BuzzFeed.com and HuffPost, a direct competitor that BuzzFeed acquired in 2020.

“In the future, we will have a single HuffPost news brand that is profitable and has a loyal, direct audience on the front page,” added Jonah Peretti.

– Pulitzer Prize –

Launched in 2006, BuzzFeed is considered the benchmark for a new generation of news sites that advertise primarily on social media and build their business model almost entirely on advertising.

BuzzFeed News, an exclusive news and investigative division, began operations in the second phase and had about 60 employees.