Robert Colvile Pitches BuzzFeed’s CEN Story To Roy Greenslade Before Publication

This 24 April 2015 email shows BuzzFeed UK news director Robert Colvile approaching media commentator Roy Greenslade shortly before publication of BuzzFeed’s CEN article, describing it as “an investigation of the site that provides much of the too-good-to-be-true content on the web” and offering to talk him through it. The document is significant because it records BuzzFeed actively trying to place or amplify the article with an outside media commentator before publication, after Press Gazette had already run a spoiler story based on briefing from CEN. It should be read alongside other Robert Colvile documents in which BuzzFeed discussed social promotion and maintaining pressure around the article, as it helps document the pre-publication media strategy surrounding the BuzzFeed/CEN narrative, not just the internal reporting process. The attempted approach is also useful context because Greenslade was not an uninformed outside observer of CEN: he had prior direct knowledge of Mike Leidig and had written about Journalism Without Borders, meaning this outreach potentially targeted someone who already had independent background knowledge inconsistent with a simple “fake news factory” framing.

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