BuzzFeed is shedding 15 percent of its staff as it also deals with the backlash to its reporting on special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal Russia investigation, according to a report.
About 250 jobs will be affected by the shakeup as the business shifts toward content-licensing and e-commerce, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The change in strategy is aimed at increasing its profit margins ahead of a possible merger and as a way to skirt the need to raise money again. Before its last funding push in 2016, the outlet was valued at about $1.7 billion.
BuzzFeed, founded in 2006, previously suffered heavy layoffs in 2017 when 100 staffers were let go after it failed to generate $350 million in revenue, delaying an initial public offering. In 2016, it made $250 million.
The company’s news division, whose content is financed in part by a membership, was criticized last week for its report claiming Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer, told Mueller’s team the president directed him to lie to Congress when he appeared before the House and Senate Intelligence committees in 2017. Mueller’s office issued a rare statement pushing back on the article, saying the outlet’s “description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.”
BuzzFeed additionally won a defamation lawsuit last month after Russian technology entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev sued the outlet over its publication of the Trump-Russia dossier in which he was initially explicitly mentioned. BuzzFeed went to great lengths to gather information on the memos, including subpoenaing law enforcement and intelligence agencies, as well as hiring a former FBI and White House cybersecurity official to dig into is claims.
