It will be interesting to see how successful Buzzfeed is at maintaining both models -- a huge array of clickbait, low-quality, traffic-driving (and revenue driving, I'd venture) content, and also a investigative journalism unit doing this type of work.
If Buzzfeed is committed to this and has the financials to support it, I think they'll eventually win people over. Al Jazeera America never really had the time to establish itself as a respectable journalistic unit. Their recent report on Peyton Manning having HGH shipped to his house was met with a fair amount of skepticism, just based on what news outlet reported it. They folded their American division a week or two later. I'd guess the same thing will happen with people questioning Buzzfeed's reporting based solely on what Buzzfeed is generally associated with. But if they can persevere that and continue to produce quality investigative reporting like this, the mainstream will eventually have to accept them.
It is interesting that the BBC seems to have taken Buzzfeed to its heart.
You quite often hear Buzzfeed editors being interviewed on Radio 4 news shows, or indeed presenting shows in the same positions that have hitherto been reserved for newspaper journalists. This too, seems to be jointly credited as Buzzfeed/BBC.
