Jim Waterson Included As BuzzFeed Editors Mock Leaked Confidential CEN Alert

This 31 July 2015 email chain is a significant branch of the leaked CEN “Fake News Alert” exchange because it shows Jim Waterson included in the internal BuzzFeed circulation after Alan White received confidential CEN client material from Karl Smith at MailOnline / Associated Newspapers. The alert was a client-facing CEN warning service about viral stories identified by CEN correspondents as fake, recycled or unreliable, and carried a confidentiality notice saying it was intended only for the named addressee and should not be copied, used or disclosed to anyone else. Instead, it was forwarded to BuzzFeed under the subject “CEN lolz”, after which White wrote “Just pissed myself” and Luke Lewis replied: “am literally dead”. The importance of this version is that it places Waterson inside the BuzzFeed editorial chain handling and mocking leaked confidential CEN material. That matters because Waterson later became a media correspondent at The Guardian and, according to Mike Leidig, later ignored requests to cover NewsX developments and wrote about CEN in a way that repeated the fake-news-factory allegation without declaring his prior BuzzFeed involvement or giving CEN/Leidig a right to reply. This document is therefore important not only as another leaked-memo item, but as evidence of Waterson’s earlier involvement in the BuzzFeed/CEN atmosphere before his later media-reporting role. [Needs citation to later Guardian article, right-to-reply correspondence, and Second Circuit material if used in that wider argument.]

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