Note: This article may contain commentary reflecting the author’s opinion.
Buzzfeed has been in the news recently. As previously covered by the DC Enquirer, the announcement by Buzzfeed Inc. that it would be shortly shutting down its news division due to what the CEO described as his error in over-investing in the news division.
As for the quality of some of the news items, Buzzfeed was infamously known for being the outlet breaking the story about the Steele Dossier that falsely accused Trump of colluding with Russia. Ben Smith, a former editor for Buzzfeed, recently published a piece in The Atlantic where he confessed that “After All That, I Would Still Publish the Dossier. But I would do some things differently.”
Paul Sperry, a senior reporter, broke the news that “…Ben Smith now admits he knew at the time he published, in full, the fake Russia dossier that it contained ‘clear errors’ — in fact, one of his editors, Miriam Elder, warned ‘It is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors.’ He [published] anyway.”
Paul Sperry also noted that “Buzzfeed founder Ben Smith has revealed that Hillary henchman David Brock shopped the fake Trump-Russia dossier to him in Brooklyn in 2016: ‘He wanted to spread the word about a dossier of allegations involving Trump’s ties to Russia.’”
Citizen Free Press wrote that based on the items described by Mr. Sperry, “President Trump has a provable defamation case against disgraced Buzzfeed/NYT editor Ben Smith. Publishing the Fake Dossier purchased by Hillary Clinton was slanderous and there is proof Ben Smith knew it was false.”
When the collusion story originally broke, Buzzfeed was sued by Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev for libeling him as being involved in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, according to Politico. As Politico wrote “BuzzFeed later redacted Gubarev’s name from the version of the dossier posted on the news outlet’s website and apologized for leaving it in at the outset…’At the time BuzzFeed published the dossier, it explained to readers that its allegations were unverified. Since then, BuzzFeed has not learned any information that would verify the allegations about Mr. Gubarev or the companies he headed,’ the businessman and the news outlet added.” This lawsuit was dropped after that mutual statement by both parties.
Not that Buzzfeed was the only outlet that was going to break the story. According to Mr. Sperry, “CNN’s Jake Tapper angrily emailed then-Buzzfeed editor Ben Smith to complain he stole his thunder by publishing the Steele dossier: “He wished we had at least waited until morning to give his news the attention it deserved: ‘Collegiality wise it was you stepping on my dick’.”
The ending of Buzzfeed’s news section heralds the end of an epoch and not a very happy one in terms of quality journalism.
