BuzzFeed Editor Quits Even As Media Firm Goes In The Black

The top editor at BuzzFeed News has resigned as the digital-media company cut staff and projects it will lose as much as $20 million this quarter despite that the firm actually made money in the last quarter of 2021 due to 18% increases in advertising and content sales, LA Times reported.

Photo Insert: Former BuzzFeed News editor in chief, Mark Schoofs, during the company's Nasdaq listing

Mark Schoofs, who had been editor in chief since 2020, told staff that he is leaving the company. Samantha Henig, the news division’s executive editor of strategy, will replace him on an interim basis.

BuzzFeed is also making cuts to its video and editorial teams at Complex Networks, a youth-focused media company it acquired in June. The cuts, which amount to 1.7% of the company’s total workforce, were first reported by the website the Information.

BuzzFeed said that while the performance in the fourth quarter of 2021 was good, the first-quarter sales for 2022 will decline “by a low single-digit percentage” and the adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization this quarter will be in the range of $15 million to $20 million.

On a conference call with analysts, BuzzFeed Chief Executive Jonah Peretti said the company is committed to making BuzzFeed News a stronger financial contributor to the larger business.

“We will prioritize investments around coverage of the biggest news of the day, culture and entertainment, celebrity, and life on the internet,” he said, a Bloomberg report added. BuzzFeed’s news division, which was started in 2011, won a Pulitzer Prize last year for exposing China’s infrastructure for detaining hundreds of thousands of Muslims in its Xinjiang region.

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