HuffPost India, the Indian operation of the US-based digital media company, HuffPost, has shuttered its operations this week ( Tuesday, 24th Novembers 2020). A note on the now defunct website, reads – “As of November 24 HuffPost India will no longer be publishing content”. The news site has been in operation in India for around 6 years and the move is expected to impact the job of around 12 team members.
The closure follows acquisition of HuffPost by BuzzFeed.
Aman Sethi, Editor-in-Chief, HuffPost India, took to Twitter to announce that the website had closed down. “Today [Tuesday] is HuffPost India’s last day,” he said. “Pound for pound, story for story, reporter for reporter, this is the greatest newsroom I have worked for; (and I still can’t quite believe I had the privilege to lead) Thank you everyone for reading our stories and supporting our journalism.”
It is understood that the move comes as one of the first casualty of regulations regarding FDI in digital media first announced in September 2019. In October 2020, a clarification on the same permitted three category of media – news aggregators, entities uploading streaming news on websites apps, and news agencies to fall under the 26 % FDI limit. As per the clarification entities covered are expected to align their FDI to 26 % level within one year of the notification, based on approval from Indian Government.
Last week, BuzzFeed revealed that it was purchasing HuffPost as part of a bigger transaction with Verizon Media. As part of the arrangement, the firms will partner on content syndication and advertising. The latest acquisition arrangement leaves out HuffPost pages in India and Brazil.
Response to Sethi’s tweet, and the news regarding the closure was observed by many. Most tweets thanked HuffPost India for its work and journalism.
Aman Sethi, further informed that the site is temporarily deactivated, and the content is being migrated – “Our content has not been wiped out, it is being migrated and should be back soon. I’ll share favs once the links are working again.”
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