Uneasiness about the sudden interest in Ukrainian politics prompted Politico to run a column by Sarah Kendzior headlined "The day we pretended to care about Ukraine". The piece rounded on the "apocalypsticle" in general and Buzzfeed in particular (hardly surprising given Politico's direct competition with Buzzfeed's increasingly impressive editorial presence). "What does it mean for Ukrainians? Few apocalypsticle authors pose the question, because the only relevant question is what it means for them: traffic. Ask not what Buzzfeed can do for Ukrainians, but what dying Ukrainians can do for Buzzfeed," asserted Kendzior, who had either not been reading Buzzfeed's excellent and extensive coverage of the crisis, or was choosing to ignore it and focus on the photos.
"Our editors are held to high standards when it comes to balancing multimedia with important factual context. We also use data and metrics to inform our distribution strategies and engage as many people as possible with these important stories. There are dozens of examples amongst our best performing stories. Most recently, this story on Russia was shared 87,000 times and was read over 1m times."
