Buzzfeed has an investigative journalism arm[0] that its built over the last ~7 years. They were a 2018 Pulitzer finalist[1].
I assume their clickbait subsidizes their investigative journalism, a business model that gives me hope given the importance of investigative journalism. Unfortunately that hope is tempered by the recent round of layoffs.
Oddly enough, the major reason I don't trust their investigative reporting was one of the articles that made them a 2018 Pulitzer finalist: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18947852 It was pretty much a conspiracy theory about Russian mind control chemicals disguised as a long-form article about the British police ignoring the supposed assassination of a scientist by the Russians.
At the moment I write this, the #1 item on the HN front page is a BuzzFeed News investigative piece[1], "One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI".
It's been about 5 years since I last read McClatchy, but assuming they haven't changed much, your statement is ridiculous. They were one of the few major newspapers in the US to still do investigations. It was the only US based newspaper I would read because it was the only major paper out there to provide different perspectives on many events at the time (e.g. Guantanamo Bay). They weren't opinion pieces, but actual journalists going out and publishing things no one else was looking into.
I assume their clickbait subsidizes their investigative journalism, a business model that gives me hope given the importance of investigative journalism. Unfortunately that hope is tempered by the recent round of layoffs.
[0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/investigations [1] https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/staff-buzzfeed-news