BuzzFeed Editors Say CEN Copy Link Is “The Real Issue” One Month Before Publication

This document is a 25 March 2015 BuzzFeed email exchange with the subject “Re CEN piece”, involving Alan White, Craig Silverman, Heidi Blake, Robert Colvile and Tom Phillips, sent almost exactly one month before publication. It records Robert Colvile saying he was “galactically unhappy” about leading with a story where BuzzFeed could not verify that CEN supplied the words as well as the images, asking “how are we sure that these stories are by CEN?” and whether the evidence was subscription to the feed or merely similarity of text. Alan White then identifies “the issue of CEN supplying copy” as “the real issue” and says there was “no easy way to get the raw copy”, while adding that the team could be “99% sure” the quotes came from CEN because they appeared across multiple versions. The exchange should be read alongside BuzzFeed_000043, where Richard James forwarded his earlier request to be removed from the CEN mailing list during BuzzFeed’s final checks, because the raw-copy problem was not only evidential but internal: BuzzFeed had people, including James, who had received CEN material and had previously circulated CEN content to Alan White, yet the team was still discussing the absence of raw CEN copy as a major obstacle. It is relevant because it shows that, after months of investigation and only weeks before publication, BuzzFeed editors still recognised a central source-chain proof gap: they needed to prove not merely that CEN pictures, credits or similar stories existed, but that the disputed words, quotes and details in downstream publisher versions actually came from CEN copy. It also shows the team considering ways around the gap, including tracking stories back to Austrian Times, asking journalists who wrote up the stories, screenshotting examples, approaching former employees, and continuing to pursue the Lucita Sandoval lead anecdote through an indirect Argentina contact.

Source

Part of Central European News & Mike Leidig v BuzzFeed (US Second Circuit Libel Case) – BF Case Documents

Europe Media Published 1 May 2026 at 21:09 Source: 1 November 2016