Just three weeks after Buzzfeed merged with Huffpost, a massive layoff has dramatically reduced the number of Huffpost staff.
What We Know:
- Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced the cut on Tuesday during a virtual staff meeting. According to The Guardian, the layoff affected nearly 30% of HuffPost’s US-based journalists and has completely shut down HuffPost Canada.
- The job cuts came as a surprise to many employees, including those with long tenures. HuffPost Canada’s senior reporter Samantha Beatti tweeted the abrupt layoff message, writing, “Without telling us they’ve shut down our site.”
https://twitter.com/Samantha_KB/status/1369346927641387011
- The Huffington Post, as it was originally called, was founded by author and businesswoman Arianna Huffington in 2005 and was co-founded by Peretti, Andrew Breitbart, and Kenneth Lerer before Peretti created Buzzfeed. This cut results from the ongoing pandemic as many media corporations look to downsize to avoid closure. Peretti told staffers the layoff was to cut costs and halt two years of financial losses after HuffPost’s exceeded $20 million last year in losses and are estimated to have similar results this year.
- Peretti defended his decision by telling sources from CNN, “The most responsible thing we can do is to manage our costs and ensure BuzzFeed — and HuffPost — are set up to prosper long-term.” Peretti said. “That’s why we’ve made the difficult decision to restructure HuffPost to reach profitability more quickly. Our goal is for HuffPost to break even this year.”
Peretti also announced that the executive editors of HuffPost, Louise Roug, and Hillary Frey, would be leaving the company as well.
