Digital Media: What Went Wrong

The digital publishing industry took a big hit in recent days, when more than 1,000 employees were laid off at BuzzFeed, AOL, Yahoo and HuffPost. The cuts at BuzzFeed were the most alarming. Wasn’t this the company that was supposed to have it all figured out?  But look past the gloom, and a complicated narrative emerges that does not lend itself to a one-size-fits-all interpretation of What Went Wrong or a handy forecast of journalism’s future. While leading digital publishers have resorted to harsh measures, legacy titles such as The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Yorker and The New York Times have seen growth as they accommodate the habits of their increasingly digitally oriented readers. At the same time, a digital-native business, Vox Media, the owner of The Verge and Eater, turned a profit in 2018, its first as a large company. Even BuzzFeed may hit its financial marks in 2019. If it does, the reason will most likely be a combination of old-school business methods tried elsewhere (including layoffs), rather than its ability to crack some esoteric digital code.