This could be a story of the appalling nature of modern journalism – no research done, little consideration of facts. It could also be a story illustrating the way that too much of that very same modern journalism is a shoddy chasing of clicks and traffic. Since this is BuzzFeed News, we should probably go for both explanations.
A week ago, Teen Vogue published an article about the 3-minute flights taken by Kylie Jenner. Or, rather, her jet, and as AIM reported, is probably the equivalent of that jet going to the parking lot having dropped the passengers off.
That it’s taken journalism nearly a week to catch up with reality shows that it’s probably not quite as good as it thinks it is. The actual BuzzFeed News article is just a collection of tweets, which illustrates the other problem.
Worse is that it’s Drake who tells everyone what is actually happening: “This is just them moving planes to whatever airport they are being stored at for anyone who was interested in the logistics,” he said. “[N]obody takes that flight.” BuzzFeed News does quote that but then carries on about climate change and rich people and their jets by quoting tweets from varied people.
This is a fascinating insight into modern journalism. The truth of the matter comes from a Canadian who has, we believe at least, something to do with the popular music business. Rather than, you know, the reporters and journalists paid to outline and describe the truth to us all. The journalists also don’t seem to realize that that is the truth, either.
BuzzFeed News always was supposed to be the serious part of BuzzFeed. The part that earned Pulitzers instead of that which simply ran clickbait. It’s still within the top 150 U.S. media sites and gains some 13 million visits a month from being so.
It also possible to muse on how the mighty are fallen. It’s less than a decade ago that BuzzFeed News made news for not being able to get into the White House Correspondents dinner (they’d applied late, apparently, they said they weren’t being taken seriously). Now, to take them seriously, well — reprints of a handful of tweets don’t an article make really, do they?