BuzzFeed News Editor in Chief Quits and Top Deputy Jumps Ship For NBC Ahead of Staff Cuts

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

BuzzFeed News editor Mark Schoofs announced Tuesday that once again, the digital media outlet would be reducing its staff. He also announced he is resigning from his post after less than two years.

“After almost two rollicking and deeply fulfilling years as editor-in-chief, I’ve decided that it’s the right time to move on,” Schoofs told staffers in a memo obtained by Mediaite.

Schoofs, who replaced Ben Smith as editor of BuzzFeed News, also announced that the newsroom would be shrinking in size.

“The next phase is for BuzzFeed News is to accelerate the timeline to profitability and undergo a strategic shift so that we will get there by the end of 2023,” he said. “That will require BuzzFeed News to once again shrink in size.”

He said he hoped that would be achieved through voluntary buyouts, not layoffs, and that BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, who co-founded the company in 2006, would have more information.

“We hope to reduce our size through voluntary buy-outs, not layoffs, and we have reached out to the union to negotiate buyouts,” Schoofs said. “Also: This is not your fault. You have done everything we asked, producing incandescent journalism that changed the world.”

“BuzzFeed News will need to get smaller,” Peretti said in his own memo, obtained by Mediaite. He also told staff that the company will reduce its workforce by a total of 1.7%, with cuts aimed at BuzzFeed Video and Complex Editorial.

The effort to “accelerate the timeline to profitability” comes the morning of BuzzFeed’s first earnings call since going public by merging with a SPAC in December.

BuzzFeed saw its second consecutive year of profitability in 2021, increasing revenues by 24% year-over-year to $397.6 million and reaching $25.9 million in profit.

But those numbers were considerably less than the $521 million in revenue and $57 million in profit the company said it expected to draw when it prepared to go public.

Schoofs also announced in his email that another top editor is departing: deputy editor in chief Tom Namako, who worked at BuzzFeed for more than seven years.

Namako is joining NBC News Digital as executive editor. Catherine Kim, global digital news chief for the network, announced the hire in an internal memo obtained by Mediaite. She said Namako will start April 25, replacing veteran journalist David Firestone, who is retiring.

Schoofs wrote in his memo that Namako would have been a “natural successor” had he stayed at the outlet. In light of his departure to NBC, Schoofs said Samantha Henig will take over the BuzzFeed newsroom, with assistance from breaking news co-director Jason Wells and London bureau chief Alex Campbell who will be “running the day-to-day news operation.”