top of page

Day 1: December 1, 2014

Who owns them?

BuzzFeed is a privately owned company with founder Jonah Perettie as its CEO and Greg Coleman as President. “Peretti created BuzzFeed in 2006 as a "viral lab" side project after he'd co-founded The Huffington Post” (Rowan, 2014). The company, based in New York, has seen its Web traffic more than “quadruple over the past year” (AdAge, 2014),

 

 

How many are owned by the same parent company? Are any owned by independent sources?

Buzzfeed is its own independent company and no information was found on it owning any other sources.

 

 

What is their annual revenue? Where do they get their revenue from?

BuzzFeed’s annual revenue was difficult to find, as was the Huffington Post’s. CEO Jonah Perettie remains quiet about how much money BuzzFeed is rolling in. However, an article from AdvertisingAge stated that “BuzzFeed is forecasting revenue of as much as $120 million in 2014, said ‘two people with knowledge of its financials’” . Interesting how its sources are unnamed.  

 

BuzzFeed “relies on Facebook and other social networks to spread its articles and videos, which can range from weighty political coverage to photo lists  and gets about a quarter of its revenue from ads it runs on websites other than BuzzFeed” (AdAge, 2014).

 

 

What’s their reader/viewer share? Is there a particular story that “made” this news venue particular popular?

Their monthly viewership is over 60 million and its biggest traffic month ever was this November with “more than 130 million unique visitors” (AdAge, 2014). It's not necessarily a specific story that got the word out about Buzzfeed. It became popular through its excellent advertising skills and social media. 

 

Was there a story that this news venue is particular well known for scooping?

Buzzfeed started as a source of entertainment and light news, but it has recently been moving toward getting scoops and becoming a credible hard news source. Ben Smith from Politico was hired in 2012 and was given the job as Editor in Chief to expand the site into "serious journalism, long-form and reportage while maintaining its popular fun and entertainment-oriented content" (Stelter, 2011). When Smith joined the company, several "scoop generators" were hired to draw attention with scoops and increase traffic, and by extension, advertising sales" (Stelter, 2011).

 

How does the news site frame itself?

On their website, Buzzfeed describes themselves as: “the social news and entertainment company. BuzzFeed is redefining online advertising with its social, content-driven publishing technology. BuzzFeed provides the most shareable breaking news, original reporting, entertainment, and video across the social web to its global audience of more than 150M” (BuzzFeed, 2014).

 

How is it perceived (conservative/liberal/moderate/completely unreliable/well-respected for fairness/etc)?

BuzzFeed does not have the most positive or respectable reputation as a news source, mainly because of content such as quizzes and cat photos accompanying its hard news articles. This July, the company was wrapped in a scandal due to one of their writers, Benny Johnson, who was fired for over 40 instances of plagiarism (Mejia, 2014). Though the company hasn't maintained a respectable reputation, BuzzFeed continues to pursue the balance between entertainment-oriented content and hard news.


 

Stories:

 

  1. Eric Holder Announces Plan To End Racial Profiling “Once And For All”

  2. Suspect in Four West Virginia Killings Found Dead

  3. Justices Struggle Over When Violent Facebook Posts Become A Felony

  4. Former Top White House Adviser Still Involved In Obama’s Library

  5. Student Died After Confronting A Group Of Men Harassing Teenage Girls

  6. How Gordon Ramsey’s “MasterChef Junior” Became the Cutest Cooking Show on Television

  7. Our 9 Favorite Feature Stories This Week: Rape Culture, Cumberbitches, and Apocalypse Noir

8. How Climate Change Will End Wine As We Know It: 

9.Accused Men Say That The System Hurting College Sexual Assault Victims Fails Them Too

10. Bill Cosby Has Resigned From Temple's Board Of Trustees

Day 2: December 2, 2014

GRADE: 31% F

GRADE: 20.5% F

(BuzzFeed News, 2014)

GRADE: 38% F

Stories:

 

  1. Protests Erupt In NYC After Eric Garner Decision

  2. Why Grand Juries Don't Punish Cops When They Kill

  3. HundredsMourn Courageous Student Who Saved Girls From Male Abusers

  4. Feminist Lawyer Gloria Allred Has Stepped Squarely Into The Bill Cosby Fray

  5. Several Police Officers Shot Dead By Militants In Chechen Capital

  6. 10 Revelations From Students Who Saw Their Classmates Hauled Away, Killed In Mexico

  7. Austin Thinks It Can Save Poor Kids By Separating Boys And Girls

  8. How Gordan Ramsay's "MasterChef Junior" Became The Cutest Cooking Show On TV

  9. Our 9 Favorite Feature Stories This Week: Rape Culture, Cumberbitches, and Apocalypse Noir

Day 3: December 3, 2014

Stories:

 

  1. ​A Look Through The Sony Pictures Data Hack: This Is As Bad As It Gets

  2. New York City Braces For Grand Jury Decision in Eric Garner Case

  3. Organizers Upset Over 43 Missing Students Want To End U.S. Aid To Mexico

  4. Major Rainstorm Causes Mudflows, Havoc in Parched California

  5. 13 Moving Images Showing The Impact Of The 1984 Bhopal Disaster

  6. Austin Thinks It Can Save Poor Kids By Separating Boys and Girls

  7. How Gordon Ramsay's "MasterChef Junior" Became The Cutest Cooking Show On TV

  8. Our 9 Favorite Feature Stories This WeekL Rape Culture, Cumberbitches, and Apocalypse Noir

  9. How Climate Change Will End Wine As We Know It

  10. No Laughing Matter: Cosby Sued For Allleged Sex Assault of 15-Year-Old

 

Analysis

Like the other online sources analyzed in this blog, BuzzFeed News failed all three days. Its core stories came to a total of 13 while it had 17 peripheral stories. Considering its reputation as an entertainment-oriented news source, it did come not a surprise that it had more peripheral stories. However, we expected a larger gap. The numbers were off by only 5 points and that was surprising, but instead of using articles from the BuzzFeed.com website's front page, we chose to use the section of the site that was dedicated to "actual news stories" rather than puppies, quizzes and celebrity gossip. Using BuzzFeed's designated news section, it perhaps weeded out a number of peripheral stories. BuzzFeed proved to hold its own in some ways. It scored a 29 in diversity, and 30 in sources. The largest factor in the failing grades of the articles was their fairness.

 

Throughout the articles, a trend started to emerge. Each time war-time or government-related controversial topics were discussed, a plethora of unnamed sources appeared. "Anonymity was requested", "Officials say..", and phrases such as "sources familiar with the Pentagon, etc." were among the most frequently used phrases to by-pass directly citing a source. Though anonymity is necessary in some cases, it was peculiar how often it was used.

 

Also, during three weeks grading news from BuzzFeed, its "Big Stories of the Week" remained the exact same. Buzzfeed would be a stronger news source if it added variety every week, as it implies with its section "Big Stories". The articles along the right side (literally on one of the peripheral sides of the site) of the webpage tended to be peripheral stories that could be distracting for those reading a serious news article.

 

BuzzFeed was strong in including diverse races and genders in its stories, though still not passing, it scored better than expected. BuzzFeed has a reputation for what some would call "silly news" stories and entertainment so it made it difficult to have faith in their ability to write strong news articles. BuzzFeed has been trying to get itself out there as a credible source and considering that it didn't score much lower than the Huffington Post and Slate Magazine, it's reasonable to keep an eye on what BuzzFeed does next.

bottom of page