Since the beginning of the afternoon of Tuesday, March 9, it is a blank page accompanied by a laconic message that welcomes any new visitor to the Canadian sites of the HuffPost : “As of March 9, HuffPost [Canada et Québec] will no longer publish content. “
The 23 Canadian journalists were notified by e-mail the same morning of a videoconference organized in the wake of the new American owner of the HuffPost, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BuzzFeed, Jonah Peretti. Password to participate “Spring is here” (” the spring is coming “). A few hours later, in view of the announcements made, the organizers of the meeting will apologize for their lack of tact.
Reduction of 47 jobs in the United States
Because at noon precisely (6 p.m. in Paris), they all learned, including managers, that their positions were being abolished. The CEO of Buzfeed, who also announced the cut of 47 jobs in the United States and explained that the Australian and British newsrooms were not immune to upcoming job cuts, justified the end of Canadian activities by the deficit $ 20 million (16.8 million euros) recorded by the HuffPost company last year. “Although BuzzFeed remains a profitable company, we cannot afford two more years of losses. “, He explained to the employees.
Acquisition by the online information site BuzzFeed of its main competitor, the HuffPost, officially bought from the American telecommunications group Verizon just three weeks ago, was presented as a new step in the “Consolidation of the free online information sector”. But since the announcement of this takeover in November 2020, Canadian editorial staff have been worried about the restructuring to come. Several employment contracts for journalists had not been renewed at the start of the year.
“This news is a shock, nobody imagined such a brutal cut », Testified an hour after being informed of his dismissal, one of the five journalists of the office of Quebec, who requested anonymity. “Despite our nearly 2 million visitors per month for the French version alone, BuzzFeed must have felt that the Quebec market was not large enough to justify additional investments”, he regretted.
You have 33.75% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
