First Look Media

First Look Media is a news organization founded by Pierre Omidyar that was first announced in October 2013 as a venue for "original, independent journalism." The organization is incorporated as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable entity.[1][2]

The project is a collaboration with Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, and Laura Poitras with a promised $250 million in funding from Omidyar.[3][4][2] The organization has announced plans to support multiple publications, the first of which is The Intercept, which launched in February 2014. On March 10, 2014, the company announced the addition of Gawker editor John Cook as editor-in-chief of The Intercept[5] as well as Natasha Vargas-Cooper and Andrew Jerrell Jones as writers for the site.[6]

A second publication was announced in February 2014 that would focus on financial and political corruption, headed by Matt Taibbi. Although the name of the publication has not been publicly announced, the name Racket has been reportedly chosen.[7] The publication was to be launched autumn 2014[8][9] but in October, it was reported that Taibbi was on leave after “disagreements with higher-ups”.[10] On October 28, Omidyar stated in a press release that Taibbi had left First Look.[11]

In February 2015, senior investigative reporter Ken Silverstein, who'd been hired in December 2013, announced his resignation. Writing in Politico, Silverstein described First Look as "a slowly unfolding disaster, not because of editorial meddling from the top, but because of what I came to believe was epic managerial incompetence. … For all of the bean counting and expense account-approving that Omidyar's organizational structure imposed on us, they were shockingly disinterested in the actual journalism. … Top management was so aloof that it was hard to figure out who was in charge."[12]

References

  1. ↑ "About - First Look Media". FirstLook.org. First Look Media. 2014. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Jay Rosen. "A First Look at NewCo’s structure". Pressthink.org.
  3. ↑ "The extraordinary promise of the new Greenwald-Omidyar venture (UPDATED)". Columbia Journalism Review.
  4. ↑ "Here's Who's Backing Glenn Greenwald's New Website". Reuters via HuffPo.
  5. ↑ Kafka, Peter. "Gawker's John Cook Joins First Look Media". Re/code. Retrieved 2014-03-10.
  6. ↑ Greenwald, Glenn (2014-03-10). "The Intercept Welcomes Its New Editor and Two New Writers". The Intercept. Retrieved 2014-03-11.
  7. ↑ Barr, Jeremy (2014-08-20). "Matt Taibbi’s First Look Media project looks like it’s called ‘Racket’". capitalnewyork.com. Politico. Retrieved 2014-10-29.
  8. ↑ Somaiya, Ravi (2014-02-19). "Start-Up Site Hires Critic of Wall St.". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 February 2014.
  9. ↑ Taibbi, Matt (2014-08-12). "Matt Taibbi Expands Team for Upcoming Digital Magazine" (Press release). First Look Media. Retrieved 2014-10-24.
  10. ↑ Somaiya, Ravi, "Matt Taibbi Is on Leave Only Months After Joining First Look Media", The New York Times, October 28, 2014. Retrieved 2014-10-28.
  11. ↑ Omidyar, Pierre (2014-10-28). "Important Announcement" (Press release). First Look Media. Retrieved 2014-10-29.
  12. ↑ Silverstein, Ken, "Where Journalism Goes to Die: Glenn Greenwald, Pierre Omidyar, Adnan Syed and my battles with First Look Media", Politico, February 27, 2015. Retrieved 2015-2-27.

External links