When Pierre Omidyar, the eBay billionaire, announced the creation of a news organization featuring, for starters, investigative heavyweight Glenn Greenwald, media expectations were set soaring—even here—and understandably so.Previously:
In a disrupted and desiccated landscape for journalism, The Intercept promised something fresh: an accomplished technologist with deep pockets combined with a new-look journalist, Greenwald, a lawyer-turned-blogger who combines world-beating scoops of global importance, like those from the Snowden files, with iconoclastic views on journalism itself.
But at the end of the month, Omidyar and his nascent umbrella organization, First Look Media, announced a reboot: pulling back on plans to develop an omnibus mass-market product with many different sites, and instead trying to build out just Greenwald’s The Intercept, which has reporting on national security and surveillance issues since February, and another site, to be launched in the fall, covering politics, finance, and culture and headed by former Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi.
“Nine months in, First Look is Still Very Much Startup,” says the post’s candid headline.
As it turns out, First Look is grappling with the same fundamental problems facing other news startups across the spectrum—how to make money and how to be distinctive—and, so far, hasn’t had much progress in finding a solution to either.
And here we should disclose that CJR gets funding from Omidyar via his philanthropic Democracy Fund....MORE
Omidyar Unsure On Strategy For His $250m Media Venture
Matt Taibbi Leaves Rolling Stone, Heading For Better Funded Venture
Journalist as Personal Brand: The Economics**
Columbia Journalism Review: The extraordinary promise of the new Greenwald-Omidyar venture
And many more, if interested follow the personal brand link.
