gumby parent
By the way let's not forget this is excellent investigative reportage by Buzzfeed who is using their clickbait revenues to do real journalism.
They've had several excellent investigative articles recently - the investigative group is headed by a pulitzer award winner.
Is there a business model behind it or just prestige? These types of articles definitely lose money for BuzzFeed.
I believe Peretti has made repeated claims dating back to the founding of the company that this was the plan. Either he's committed or doesn't want to be legitimately called a liar :-)
All joking aside: so far they've done good work and I assume it is earnest.
It's like creating cancer to cure it. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
Well, to be fair, clickbait and yellow journalism far far predates Buzzfeed (e.g. Hearst's apocryphal "you supply the article and I'll supply the war"). And the muckrakers were also click baiters.
But I see your point.