Overview

2019 Buzzfeed and HuffPost Layoffs refers to announcements that 250 staff members at BuzzFeed and approximately 1,000 of the personnel in the Verizon Media Group, including Yahoo, AOL and HuffPost, would be laid off over the course of two weeks in late January 2019.^[2][3]

Background

On January 23rd, 2019 BuzzFeed founder, Jonah Peretti, sent out a memo to employees titled “Difficult Changes.” The memo read: “Hello BuzzFeeders, I’m writing with sad news: we are doing layoffs at BuzzFeed next week. We will be making a 15% overall reduction in headcount across the company. I’m sending this tonight because I wanted you to hear it from me directly instead of from the press.” According to Jonah Peretti, the layoffs were meant to trim cost while maintaining growth and profitability but others speculated the company was readying itself for a sale or merger.^[1]

Developments

On January 24th, 2019, Brian Maygars, the former head of opinion at HuffPost, tweeted^[14] that the site's "opinion section is no more" and that the team had been "let go" (shown below). Within four days, the tweet gained 2,554 retweets and 8,940 likes.

On January 25th, HuffPost reported the loss of 20 employees and about 800 employees across several brands, including AOL and Yahoo. The entire Health and Opinion sections were eliminated along with the Pulitzer Prize finalist, Jason Cherkis. ^[4] BuzzFeed laid off 43 of the roughly 250 journalists who worked in the newsroom. Although there were no cuts to the technology, politics or investigations teams, staff members of the national desk, health, national security, entertainment and LGBT desk were laid off.^[3]

That same day, former BuzzFeed Editor, Tina Susman^[9] tweeted: “The national desk at @BuzzFeedNews was killed off today. This was my first full-time editing gig, and I nearly didn’t take the job, but despite today’s gloominess i’m glad I did. It’s been great, and I’m proud to ride out the front door with my team.” The tweet garnered 334 retweets and 1,815 likes in three days.

On January 26th, Alexandre Mouriec ^[17] posted to Twitter that he made a website for ex-BuzzFeed employees looking for work (shown below). The Tweet gained 1,235 retweets and 2,671 likes in three days.

On January 28th, the BuzzFeed branch in Australia cut 11 employees including Gina Rushton, nominated for a Human Rights Award for coverage of abortion law reform, Lane Sainty, who became an eminent voice on LGBT issues and political editor Alice Workman who gained greater prominence last year for reporting on Labor MP Emma Husar.^[19] Joseph Scales responded on Twitter to the layoffs (shown below).

BuzzFeed PTO Controversy

Max Tani^[8] also tweeted that "Jonah Peretti is getting chewed out in BuzzFeed's Slack right now. After he said it was a "good idea" to let staff bring in dogs on Monday, another staffer replied: "What if instead of letting people bring in dogs we paid out peoples' PTO in all states, not just California?" The tweet gained 774 retweets and 6,733 likes in three days.

On January 26th, The BuzzFeed News Staff Council posted an open letter on Medium demanding a "pay out earned paid time off to its recently laid-off employees." The letter was addressed to Jonah Peretti, Lenke Taylor, and Ben Smith and stated BuzzFeed employee concerns regarding paid time off. The BuzzFeed News Staff Council states that "every aspect of the way that these layoffs have been handled so far -- from communication to execution to aftermath -- has been deeply upsetting and disturbing, and it will take a long time to repair the damage that has been done to our trust in this company. But there’s one thing you can do right now to help the employees who are losing their jobs." They demand that BuzzFeed pays out PTO to all employees laid off and not just to California employees. As of January 28th, the letter included 463 signatures.^[10]

On January 27th, Hollywood Reporter writer Jeremy Barr^[11] posted BuzzFeed's internal response to the Medium letter. The tweet gained over 100 retweets and 300 likes in one day (shown below).

On January 28th, Jonah Peretti sent an email to BuzzFeed employees “that the decision was made to pay out earned and unused PTO and comp days as part of the severance packages for U.S. employees impacted by these layoffs in states where this is not required by law.”^[16]

Donald Trump's Tweet

On January 26th, President Donald Trump^[5] tweeted, “Ax falls quickly at BuzzFeed and Huffpost!” Headline, New York Post. Fake News and bad journalism have caused a big downturn. Sadly, many others will follow. The people want the Truth!" The tweet accumulated 6,259 retweets and 111,886 likes in two days.

That day, BuzzFeed's Editor-in-Chief, Ben Smith^[6], responded to Trump's tweet by tweeting, "What a disgusting thing to say about dozens of American workers who just lost their jobs." The tweet garnered 4,757 retweets and 30,878 likes in two days (shown below).

Meanwhile, the HuffPost editor-in-chief, Lydia Polgreen,^[7] also responded to Trump's tweet, saying "1,000 journalists lost their jobs last week. Ordinary people with rent to pay, families to support, student loan bills coming due. They are workers like any other who do not deserve this cruelty." Within 48 hours, the tweet gained 3,636 retweets and 16,589 likes in two days (shown below).

"Do You Still Have a Job at BuzzFeed?" Quiz

On January 28th, Jason Sweeten^[15], former quiz writer at BuzzFeed, tweeted a link to a quiz he wrote for BuzzFeed employees unsure if they are still employed (shown below). The tweet accumulated over 500 retweets and 1,800 likes that day. Jason Sweeten posted the quiz titled "Do You Still Have A Job At BuzzFeed?'As you know, the company is going thru a reorganization…'" to BuzzFeed that same day.^[12]

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Learn to Code

On January 24th, 2019, Jalopnik editor-in-chief Patrick George tweeted^[13] tweeted he believed in a "special, dedicated section of Hell" for people with anime profile pictures who tweet "learn to code" to journalists who had been laid off (shown below). Within 24 hours, the tweet gained over 1,300 likes and 260 retweets. The tweet was posted shortly after the announcements that BuzzFeed laid off 15% of its staff and The Huffington Post had eliminated its Opinion and Healthcare editorial sections.

Search Interest

External References