BuzzFeed: Old Media's Given Up On Young Stupid People

October 10th, 2013 7:02 AM

Two items by Andrew Beaujon at Poynter are interesting when put side by side. At a conference in Cannes, the Guardian reports, BuzzFeed President Jon Steinberg said that “We feel strongly that traditional media have given up on young people” and that news organizations should focus on sharing throughout their processes. They need to stop the old model of "very boring news" geared for Google searches and focus on shares in social media.

So what is the new news that the youngsters under 40 want? Beaujon has the details right below. Joe Veix of Death and Taxes says BuzzFeed "posted essentially the same article" he did without crediting him prominently enough.   His October 2 story was about people tweeting photos of themselves falling down stairs.  

Ryan Broderick wrote a story published the same day called "Teenagers Are Obsessed With Tweeting Photos Of Each Other Falling Down The Stairs" that linked to Veix's story, but not obviouslyi enough for Veix.

Even scarier is Buzzfeed's Steinberg claiming "We're bringing more hard news on a relative basis than a lot of the traditional television networks do now." That  might be true.