Snark Futures Rise on News BuzzFeed Scored Obama Interview

Evan McMurryFeb 8th, 2015, 11:37 am

BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith scored an interview with President Barack Obama set for Tuesday, one that will be released via the Facebook. (“It’s intended to be funny and appealing to young people.”)

YMMV as to whether this counts as 1) a major notch for native web publications; 2) NBD after the YouTube celeb interviews; 3) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯:

Not a big deal to interview POTUS after fruit loop lady, sorry.

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) February 8, 2015

So @Buzzfeed is going to interview PBO 2 weeks after @AdamSerwer called the @YouTube interviews a PR stunt? #LOL #WIN #OMG #FAIL #CUTE #WTF

— Joey (@60th_Street) February 8, 2015

Congrats to Buzzfeed for landing the Obama interview. They are good now. Before they weren't. But now? They are.

— L u k e O' N e i l (@lukeoneil47) February 8, 2015

Great that @Buzzfeed & @BuzzFeedBen got Obama intw. But less surprising than Between Two Ferns and those YouTube people.

— Jill Lawrence (@JillDLawrence) February 8, 2015

Comgrats to Buzzfeed for their sit down with Obama,, pic.twitter.com/uzaSzjRX7R

— L u k e O' N e i l (@lukeoneil47) February 8, 2015

There will be so many "known for its cat listicles" sentences and "10 things about BuzzFeed's interview with President Obama" stories

— Andrew Beaujon (@abeaujon) February 8, 2015

BuzzFeed was also congratulated by peers for the get:

Congrats to @BuzzFeedBen for scoring a POTUS interview. http://t.co/zXmpPbaSNn — nice moment for online-only news sites

— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) February 8, 2015

And if you still confuse "Buzzfeed" and "Buzzfeed News" I pity you. Look at the *reporting*.

— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) February 8, 2015

Why is "BuzzFeed to interview Obama" really a story? Should it be any more a story than WaPo or the NYTimes would be at this point?

— Niels Lesniewski (@nielslesniewski) February 8, 2015

And the backlash was predicted and pre-mocked by at least one editor: