A curse word was an uninvited guest in a May 23 BuzzFeed/CNN piece by Ryan Broderick and Emanuella Grinberg, CNN spokesperson Jenna DiMaria tells Poynter via email: “The language in question was posted in error. It was meant to be omitted from the published image and has since been corrected.”
The offending word summed up one user’s chagrin at Yahoo buying Tumblr:
- A screenshot from Tuesday afternoon.
CNN and BuzzFeed announced a partnership Tuesday that would include videos as well as “list posts that combine the strength of CNN’s newsgathering and BuzzFeed’s signature voice.”
BuzzFeed spokesperson Ashley McCollum confirmed DiMaria’s account of the goof in a promptly returned email. Asked whether the organizations have had conversations about the tone of their collaborative efforts, she said “CNN and BuzzFeed have different audiences and vernaculars and bridging the two is indeed part of the fun.”
BuzzFeed doesn’t “have a hard and fast policy” regarding profanity, McCollum said. DiMaria said CNN avoids it as “a general guideline”:
There are instances where we’ve made exceptions for the sake of the story. We weigh those decisions on a case by case basis.
