BuzzFeed president says site offers more news than TV networks

Speaking at MIPCOM in Cannes, BuzzFeed president and chief operating officer Jon Steinberg explained that the Internet's hub for listicles about kittens and GIFs from Mean Girls is actually delivering hard news to all of those damn youths that television network anchors like to shake their fists at.

Steinberg went on to elaborate about the company's relationship with CNN and the chasm between online news consumers and cable television viewers.

We feel strongly that traditional media have given up on young people, and have not made a commitment to tell stories that are interesting for people under 40 or 50 years old," said Steinberg.

BuzzFeed now has more than 100 full-time writers, with a growing proportion focusing on news and politics. Steinberg said that around 40% of the site's traffic comes from links shared on Facebook, and 70% from social sources in general.

"We're bringing more hard news on a relative basis than a lot of the traditional television networks do now," said Steinberg, although he also talked about BuzzFeed's partnership with one of those networks – CNN– on the CNN BuzzFeed YouTube channel.

Steinberg explains that there's almost no overlap between people who get their news from TV and people who get their news from online sources.

The alliance sees CNN providing video footage to BuzzFeed, which then "remixes and recuts" it in a shortform, shareable format aimed at YouTube's younger audience.

"There's very little cannibalisation," he said. "CNN was very forward-thinking to recognise that. A lot of television networks are wrongly scared of cannibalising themselves, but there is almost no overlap between television news viewers and online news viewers."

He also talks about the backward approach to social media employed by the television networks and speaks to idea that quality content drives online sharing. If you've got a few minutes, head over to The Guardian to read up on his full remarks and the folks who backed up his claims at MIPCOM in Cannes. [The Guardian]