The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in May 2018 how Buzzfeed created dozens of anti-Trump political ads for anti-Trump Super PACs during the 2016 election based on its myriad of personal information it collected from its own users.
During this same time period Buzzfeed refused to work with pro-Trump groups and ran anti-Trump hit pieces on its website.
Jeff Giesa took this one step further and revealed on Wednesday on the huge sums of cash Buzzfeed was being paid at this time from the far left PACs.
Here’s a list of 2016 disbursements to @BuzzFeed from major Democratic PACs. Note the big ones from Priorities USA and the timing. cc @seanmdav @ChuckRossDC ht @2xwide_dreaming (link https://t.co/ujGD4Ouhqh) pic.twitter.com/PF4Dh6CaHi
— Jeff Giesea🌿 (@jeffgiesea) April 24, 2019
What’s more, as Jeff wrote today, “BuzzFeed was bashing Trump in its editorial coverage and highly consequential misinformation (it published the Steele Dossier), it was engaged in microtargeting and writing native advertorial-articles aimed at fighting Trump paid for by Democratic PACs.”
In other words: while BuzzFeed was bashing Trump in its editorial coverage and highly consequential misinformation (it published the Steele Dossier), it was engaged in microtargeting and writing native advertorial-articles aimed at fighting Trump paid for by Democratic PACs.
— Jeff Giesea🌿 (@jeffgiesea) April 24, 2019
The Daily Caller News Foundation reported this last May.
A spokesman for BuzzFeed downplayed Shapiro’s comments, saying the website’s news and advertising business are “completely walled off” from one another. The existence of that firewall, according to BuzzFeed, should alleviate any concerns raised by its close work with anti-Trump political groups in 2016.
“BuzzFeed News is an award-winning international news organization, recognized this week by the Pulitzer Prize Board for the second consecutive year. The BuzzFeed News editorial operation is completely walled off from BuzzFeed’s advertising business, like virtually any other media organization that operates a news division and accepts advertising–a concept that must be foreign to the Daily Caller,” BuzzFeed News spokesman Matt Mittenhal told TheDCNF in a statement.
Mittenhal’s assertion that BuzzFeed’s news operation is “completely walled off” from its advertising business appears to be inconsistent with the website’s own editorial standards, which clearly states that management-level editorial employees sometimes cross over to the advertising side to vet certain projects.
“BuzzFeed News maintains a divide between advertising and editorial staff, the website’s news standards and ethics guides states. “However, management-level editorial employees may be asked to vet certain sponsorships or projects. Some forms of advertising — including video integrations and advertisements in podcasts — may also involve staffers’ participation in a clearly disclosed form.”…
…BuzzFeed’s tools helped inform the decision-making processes of their super PAC clients, according to one client, former Priorities USA Executive Director Anne Caprara.
“We have the ability to test it and to run a program to look at it and say that it’s reaching these voters and persuading them in different ways. It informs the decision-making,” Caprara, whose super PAC paid BuzzFeed $1.5 million for ads in 2016, told The Washington Post.