(2013-10-17) Greenwald Joining Omidyar News Venture

Jay Rosen gives some background on the news that Glenn Greenwald is leaving the Guardian to join Pierre Omidyar's new Journalism venture. In the spring of this year, Pierre Omidyar was one of the people approached by the Washington Post Company about buying the Post. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, wound up with the prize. But as a result of exploring that transaction, Omidyar started thinking seriously about investing in a news property. He began to ask himself what could be done with the same investment if he decided to build something from the ground up... Attempts to meet with Greenwald to discuss these plans and to find out more about how he operates were unsuccessful until this month. When they finally were able to talk, Omidyar learned that Greenwald, his collaborator LauraPoitras, and The Nation magazine’s Jeremy Scahill had been planning to form their own journalism venture. Their ideas and Omidyar’s ideas tracked so well with each other that on October 5 they decided to “join forces” (his term.)

Nov17: Jay Rosen is joining them as an adviser. So far this venture is still being called "NewCo".

Dec19: Rosen notes the venture has now been named First Look Media, and gives some details about its structure.