Billionaires Who Promise to Save Journalism and Then Default: It Ought To Be a Crime.

Image result for first look media

Let’s talk about fraud: “a person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities,” the dictionary calls it.

Let’s also discuss breach of contract. “A breach of contract occurs when the promise of the contract is not kept, because one party has failed to fulfill their agreed-upon obligations, according to the terms of the contract. Breaching can occur when one party fails to deliver in the appropriate time frame, does not meet the terms of the agreement, or fails to perform at all,” says a random legal website I googled. Sounds right.

Pierre Omidyar cofounded eBay. He became a billionaire at age 31 when eBay went public. Forbes says he’s now worth $12.8 billion.

As you know, journalism is in trouble. So it sounded almost too good to be true when Omidyar lured Glenn Greenwald, who famously received the Edward Snowden stash of secret documents that proved the U.S. government is spying on us, away from the UK Guardian in order to helm a new, fearless, left-leaning journalism organization by the name of First Look Media.

Best of all, Omidyar promised to fix the biggest problem faced by 21st century journalists: shrinking budgets. First Look Media, Omidyar said, would get a whopping $250 million in order to support “independent journalists in a way that leverages their work to the greatest extent possible, all in support of the public interest.”

Geld macht frei.

Watch this crazy announcement video from 2013. No, really, watch.

First Look Media, Omidyar promises in his video, would feature a “flagship” online magazine—The Intercept, edited by Greenwald—that would “cover news and stories from entertainment and sports to politics and business.” In addition, he pledged, there would be “a family of digital magazines.” (Spoiler: the sports, business and entertainment stuff never materialized.)

One of First Look’s “verticals,” in publishing vernacular, was to be called Racket, “a hard-hitting, satirical magazine in the style of the old Spy” to be edited by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone. (Disclosure: I met with Taibbi to discuss the possibility of working for him. Another disclosure: I talked to a reporter at The Intercept about covering my lawsuit against the Los Angeles Times. He was excited but went cold after he pitched it to his editors.)

According to Taibbi and also Greenwald, Taibbi chafed under Omidyar’s incessant micromanaging on everything from whom he could hire to where they would sit. Taibbi quit and returned to Rolling Stone. That was the end of Racket.

Then the fickle billionaire pulled the plug on his other playthings. “Omidyar made clear that there were no plans to launch any more digital magazines in the near term,” Greenwald wrote in 2014. First Look did pick up the cartoon site The Nib in 2016 and added the nonfiction storytelling publication Topic in 2017, only to cancel both and fire their staffs as part of “cost-cutting moves” in 2019.

Omidyar did not explain why an organization backed by a man worth $12.8 billion needs to cut costs, nor how he reconciles his fickleness with that I’ve-got-your-back video. Really, watch it! (To put this in terms a normal person can understand, if you’re worth $500,000, Omidyar’s $250 million pledge is equivalent to $9,000. If you have $500,000 and you can’t spare $9,000 you’re doing something wrong.)

Earlier this year, Omidyar decided to shut down First Look’s maintenance of the Snowden archive. Given that that trove was the company’s original raison d’être, alongside its dedication to investigative journalism, it left loyalists like First Look cofounder Laura Poitras scratching their heads. In March the company laid off its team of researchers.

The point of First Look, remember, was to give good reporters plenty of cash so they could focus on writing and research.

According to Columbia Journalism Review Omidyar has made good on just $90 million of his $250 million commitment. Which is still a lot of money, but it won’t last forever when you’re burning up cash paying exorbitant wages to editors like Greenwald. He collected $1.6 million between 2014 and 2017 while entry-level grunts are making do with $55,000 in a Manhattan where one-bedroom apartments go for $3,500 a month.

Left-leaning journalism types have been whispering about the shenanigans at First Look for years. But few are willing to speak out in public. Omidyar is powerful and wealthy. What if you might want to work for him someday?

Billionaires are purchasing social good will in the hope that they will be “credited with the accomplishments or qualities” of contributing to the “public good,” as Omidyar says in his over-the-top video.

And I’m fine with that—as long as they don’t breach their contract with the public. Omidyar promised us a passel of verticals/online magazines. Where are they? He promised journalists virtually unlimited freedom to investigate, travel, whatever it takes to do their jobs. Budget cuts and mass layoffs are a clear violation of that pledge. He cheated us. He should be held accountable.

Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong is another billionaire, this one from biotech, who has burnished his image as a savior of American journalism by purchasing The Los Angeles Times, the nation’s fourth-largest newspaper. Soon-Shiong is purportedly worth $7.1 billion.

But there’s already a stink, and I’m not talking about the smell of jet fuel raining down on the Times’ new low-budget office building in El Segundo, directly under the flight approach to LAX. The Times previous home was an art deco gem downtown on Times-Mirror Square. Why, one wonders, can’t a man worth $7.1 billion shell out the $50 million-ish cost of a downtown office building rather than move reporters a three-hour drive away from some parts of the city they’re supposed to be covering? (That’s $3,500 for someone worth $500,000.) Why do so many of his new hires skew so young, Millennial and thus so cheaply five-digit?

Despite slavishly sucking up to him in public statements, the union representing Times employees has been rewarded with contempt by Soon-Shiong, who refuses to negotiate in good faith.

Jeff Bezos, self-proclaimed savior of The Washington Post, has a similar attitude toward workers at his newspaper.

I don’t have a problem with derps derping, even when they’re running major news outlets. What seriously pisses me off is when those derps are billionaires who market themselves as saviors to be admired, when they’re anything but.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Francis: The People’s Pope.” You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

 

12 Comments.

  • Errr, the ostensible link to the video appears to be a text article …?

    In general, left-leaning media don’t tend to do so well. (remember Air America?)

    Righties are more likely to get fired up by the likes of Rich Limpbone, and of course the rich are more likely to finance right-leaning media than otherwise. (John Stewart and Stephen Colbert are making inroads, but compare their ratings to the wingnuts…) (yeah, I know my references are dated. I’m dated.)

    This is a scary, scary, list:
    https://radioink.com/2019/02/06/here-are-the-top-50-streamed-talk-show-hosts/

    It does sound like Omidyar backed down on a promise, not sure it’s actionable. Maybe some smart lawyer could find a verbal contract there somewhere, but then the smart lawyers are smart enough to back the rich as well …

  • Is this the video in question?

  • I’d suggest the “original raison d’être” of First Look was precisely to neutralize the Snowden documents. Its not clear if that is “merely” shutting off access to them or completely destroying them. The only remaining question is: how much more than Omidyar is alleged to have spent on First Look did he receive from the NSA do it.

    The story of the death of the “grand American experiment in self-goveranance” is slavish belief in what billionaires say … when they seem to talking about something else besides making more money.

  • Here’s how it is.
    1. My theory, Part I. The social media people saw that no one got crucified for the collapse of the economy in 2007. Hell, Obama bailed out the bankers. Bezos and pals realized, this was the time to go for the biggest grab possible. If people losing their life savings in crooked mortgages and ending up on the street isn’t punished, these old doddering fools in Washington won’t know from server farms and cookies. Look at how Zuckerberg “gave away” 99% of his Facebook stock. Yes, by transferring it to an LLC under his control. I think he stole the idea from Obamacare: the money still goes to the same people, it just takes a different route, and, somehow, anyone who tries to point it out is ignored.
    2. My theory, Part II. The Zuck, Bezos, etc., realized that the most important thing to do is get rid of the last guard who’s still awake: the traditional media, which still, despite all the mockery, originates a lot of what the conversation is about in the media. The media’s been fading for quite a while. You don’t want to startle the victim this close to the point of no return, so take a few more years. No need to risk someone having a moment of clarity. And once that’s done, once the last LATimes reporter and editor leave in disgust as they’re misted with jet fuel, when the Washington Post gives “2+2=4” six Pinocchios and wins the Dorsey Medal of Valor, it’ll be done with. They’ll control the outlets of communication (and be protected at that point from any government interference thanks to the First Amendment). it’s like the last line of Animal Farm:”The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
    But the few of us with any money left will be able to get drone delivery in under a day of some more plastic crap from China.

  • Reality Winner submitted a classified document to Intercept, which gave it to the NSA, saying, ‘Tell Ms Winner Intercept says “Hi,” when you arrest her.’ (NSA told Intercept they’d be arrested for publishing the classified document they got from Ms Winner, but gave them an unclassified redacted version that they published.)

  • “Billionaires Who Promise to Save Journalism and Then Default: It Ought To Be a Crime.”

    And it would be a crime if not for the wealthy capitalists who act in the name of the State.

    It would a crime against an informed democracy if we lived under a democratic, instead of an oligarchic, form of government.

    • Hey, Glenn – this is partially a test, not an argument, but I would like to add: the state acts in the name of wealthy capitalists as well. 😉

  • and this is likewise a test, are all comments moderated now?

  • But Ted, one doesn’t become a billionaire by keeping unenforceable promises. Even journalists, not least Mr Greenwald, who after all is trained and has worked as a lawyer, surely are aware of this fact….

    Henri

  • Capture and Kill.

    Buy and own a story in order keep it from the public.

    Once a publisher buys it, he can do whatever he wants with it under copyright law (as I understand it).

    That includes sitting on it.

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