News Corp chief slams Buzzfeed model: ‘It’s not difficult’, just photos of cats, dogs and ‘silly little headlines scraped from other sites’
Robert Thomson, the chief executive of News Corp, has hit out at "trash traffic" created by popular news sites such as Buzzfeed, adding that advertisers want “gilt by association, not guilt”.
The Guardian reports that Thomson, speaking at a media conference in London on Tuesday, said News Corp will continue to invest in “quality content,” adding “we believe in journalism, the power of journalism, and the profitability of great journalism”.
"We are not going to cut down to the bone and beyond”.
In a scathing put down of news sites which have adopted the Buzzfeed model, Thomson added that it's “easy to come up with a website that I guarantee you would hit a million hits within four weeks".
“We could have photos of cats, we could complement that with some photos of dogs, and silly little headlines which we’ve scraped from other sites, we could do that. It’s not difficult, even I could do it.
“There is something more important than that, and advertisers … will come to realise that.”
Instead of sheer view volume, Thomson said advertisers are instead becoming more interested in engagement and that is something only granted by “high quality journalism”.