Rana Sweis

Journalism World

BuzzFeed and the digital media meltdown

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IN RETROSPECT, BUZZFEED CEO JONAH PERETTI’S March 2014 memo to staff, titled “Is History Repeating Itself?” reads like an extended challenge to the rule that every headline ending with a question mark can be answered with a “no.” Peretti told his LOLing troops that “we’re at the start of a new golden age of media” and compared their digital outfit
to an early-stage Time Inc.

So much can change in five years. “There were times when people would overhype digital media and be irrationally bullish about it,” Peretti tells me, not mentioning that he was one of those people. “And there are times when people are irrationally bearish about it. We’re probably at a moment where people are being more pessimistic than they should be.

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Rana Sweis Articles

Journalism World

The Truth Is Hard. But for a New York Times Lawyer, Defending It Is Fun.

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For many Americans, the greatest reason to cheer during the sleepy, low-scoring game that was Super Bowl LIII was not the Patriots’ victory. In certain circles, it was the highly anticipated, multimillion-dollar commercial produced by the Washington Post, featuring the voice of Tom Hanks and heroic footage of journalists from various outlets that proclaimed, over a soaring score, these simple truths: “Knowing empowers us, knowing helps us decide, knowing keeps us free.”


It was a good ad, inspiring even. Who doesn’t love Tom Hanks? But you could find The Washington Post commercial uplifting and also saddening, insofar as it was deemed necessary.


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