If you want an article about things that Rihanna did at the Grammy Awards or a list of jokes that only “pretty” people will appreciate, then Buzzfeed can deliver with reasonable consistency. But if you want decently accurate coverage of animation history—even the most basic and mundane Disney history—you’d be better off looking elsewhere.
A recent piece called 23 Magical Pictures From The Golden Years Of Disney, compiled by BuzzFeed News photo essay editor Gabriel H. Sanchez, contains a gross amount of errors and displays a total absence of editorial standards.
It’s easy to write off Buzzfeed, and say, ‘Who cares?,’ but the company has remarkably broad reach—as of November 2016, 72 million unique monthly visitors, making it the 35th most-visited destination online. Its sheer size and influence means that much of what they publish will eventually filter its way to the top pages of Google’s search listings, a guarantee that its misinformation will spread to other places.
