BET Digital is reportedly wiping years of written journalism off the internet as the network goes all-in on video.
HuffPost Deputy Editor Philip Lewis reported Friday that BET Digital had removed its digital news archive, potentially making years of BET.com articles inaccessible to the public.
“BET Digital has permanently removed all its digital news articles from its website to ‘prioritize video content,’ I’m told,” Lewis wrote, adding that some writers were able to save copies of their work while others were not.
The reported move comes as BET rolls out a redesigned digital platform built around video.
Instead of leading visitors through a traditional written-news archive, the revamped BET.com puts video content front and center, with YouTube also playing a prominent role across the platform.
Orchid Richardson, BET’s senior vice president of digital, previously described the strategy bluntly.
“We’re leading with video,” Richardson said, while also emphasizing the role of community storytellers in BET News.
The network has said the redesigned experience is intended to make content easier to access, with a focus on videos, events, premieres, television programming, Paramount+ titles and digital shows.
But the reported disappearance of BET’s written archive has raised a much bigger issue: what happens to all the journalism that came before the pivot?
BET has played a major role in documenting Black entertainment and culture since its launch in 1980, while its digital newsroom eventually expanded that coverage into news, music and cultural reporting.
Those archived stories can serve as records for readers, journalists and researchers — particularly when they document moments in Black pop culture that might otherwise become difficult to trace online.
Lewis reported that some BET writers managed to preserve their articles before the removal, while others did not.
It remains unclear from the supplied reporting whether the articles are still stored internally or whether the public archive could eventually return.
At the same time, BET is moving forward with its new digital strategy, including a Community Reporting Initiative designed to bring original video reporting from journalists working in several U.S. markets.
The shift reflects the broader battle for audiences in a digital media landscape increasingly dominated by video.
But BET’s reported archive wipeout leaves behind an uncomfortable question: when a media company changes formats, what happens to the history it already created?
