Relatively few people noticed that BuzzFeed News was put to death last week. For those paying attention, there was little surprise in the announcement, though it did come several weeks after the website’s editor-in-chief declared that reporters would have to pump out stories at a far greater volume to save the business. The business was not saved because BuzzFeed never had a viable business model. Readers here know I’ve made this point many times already. If you’re going to survive without a print product—and BuzzFeed, of course, never had one—you’ll need paid subscribers, generous donations, the support of a foundation or benefactor, or investor cash that never runs out. BuzzFeed’s operation was predicated on a VC model that was always doomed, but frightened rivals for some time in the early 2010s. I am sad to see BuzzFeed News go because reporters are losing their jobs and the website, at its best, did very good work. I am gratified, though, this particular era of journalism is finished.
That era was my youth. Multiple generations can lay claim now to entering journalism at a time of great precarity—the industry has been in various stages of contraction since the mid-2000s—and my particular entry point, at the start of the 2010s, was rather rough. The economic crash was only a few years in the rearview mirror, and had served as the great accelerant of a nationwide newspaper collapse. In college, I didn’t major in journalism because I considered it foolhardy to even try. I was going to be an English teacher and write my novels on the side. It seemed like a good life. I didn’t want to be poor. In 2009, 2010, and 2011, there were endless stories of newspaper layoffs and closures, and the digital start-ups didn’t inspire any great amount of confidence.
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