BuzzFeed Email Warns Colvile He Used Heidi Blake’s Telegraph Address In CEN Investigation Thread

This BuzzFeed disclosure document is a three-page internal email chain from 28 March 2015 concerning the CEN investigation. Alan White forwards or replies to Robert Colvile under the subject “Re: Investigation into CEN” and warns: “p.s. you emailed Heidi’s Telegraph email, careful!” The forwarded chain shows Robert Colvile circulating material “for collective info” to Allison Lucas, with Ben Smith, Luke Lewis and Nabiha Syed copied into the earlier exchange, and saying they “should be able to get some copy as well via a friend”. Most of the substantive earlier material is redacted, but the visible parts are still useful because they show the CEN investigation being discussed among senior BuzzFeed figures shortly before publication, with Colvile apparently drawing on outside or informal routes for material. The warning about Heidi Blake’s Telegraph email is also significant because Blake had recently moved from The Sunday Times Insight team to BuzzFeed, but the use of an old Telegraph address suggests the investigation was being handled through overlapping personal and professional networks rather than a clean, self-contained BuzzFeed reporting chain. The document does not show what was said in the redacted material, so it should not be overstated, but it supports the broader picture of BuzzFeed’s CEN investigation involving senior editors, legal/policy figures, outside contacts and legacy-media relationships in the weeks before publication.

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