That's the path Buzzfeed has purported to take since the beginning, and as much as I dislike their current offering, they have struck true to that path. I remember when buzzfeed first came out and it was nothing but the lists of images stolen from reddit (pretty similar to 9gag). Now they have a decent amount of original content, and I suspect their goal is to improve the quality of content over time. That said I think they will always be more entertainment focused but there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that.

Why should they succeed at making money by putting out high-quality journalism where others have failed?

Quality journalism doesn't pay in a dollars in to dollars out basis. A carefully-researched article that takes a week-long trip to the Congo to write will get no more and possibly fewer clicks than "Ten Amazing Shark Facts That Will Make You Shit Your Pants" that takes twenty minutes on wikipedia.

That's an optimistic view, especially as they are moving swiftly in the opposite direction with their "native advertising" push. That's why they are an attractive investment, and that is anti-journalism.