Pierre Omidyar says his decision to invest $250 million in launching a new general-interest news site was influenced by what the retired eBay founder saw in Hawaii, after Gannett sold The Honololu Advertiser in 2010 to its crosstown rival, reducing news coverage there.
In a new Q&A with New York Times media correspondent David Carr, Omidyar said:
"We’ve lived in Hawaii for about seven years and I saw a gap in coverage as newsrooms were merging — there was a real reduction in reporting capacity and so I felt it was critical to just build a newsroom that is exclusively focused on public affairs. I wanted to get my hands dirty learning what it’s like to work with journalists and editors day in and day out, to see how the sausage is made. Through that experience, I saw firsthand the impact that really good investigative stories have at every level and so this is the next step in a very long journey."
"We’ve lived in Hawaii for about seven years and I saw a gap in coverage as newsrooms were merging — there was a real reduction in reporting capacity and so I felt it was critical to just build a newsroom that is exclusively focused on public affairs. I wanted to get my hands dirty learning what it’s like to work with journalists and editors day in and day out, to see how the sausage is made. Through that experience, I saw firsthand the impact that really good investigative stories have at every level and so this is the next step in a very long journey."
Contrast the reaction of the lamestream liberal journalism fraternity to the coming of all these left-wing zillionaire dilettantes—Bezos, Omidyar, Skoll, Buffett, Chris Hughes, Lauren Jobs—-versus abject hysteria over David and Charles Koch tire-kicking at Tribune. Hypocrites.
ReplyDeleteAs a journalist, I would choose an Omidyar over a Koch anyway. Of that group, he's strongest on press freedom.
Delete(And, note: Steve Jobs' widow's name is Laurene.)
As for the assertion concerning who's better on press freedom, what is your evidence? Sounds a bit fishy since the Kochs are renowned as stout libertarians and First Amendment hawks. They certainly are not going to shrink from holding politicians and bureaucrats accountable. In any event, what precisely is your basis for comparison?
DeleteEverything Omidyar's written recently specifically about the Obama Administration's pursuit of government leaks tells me he's on the right path.
DeleteAre you suggesting the Koch brothers would be less interested in hunting down government whistleblowers than Obama's been?
The Kochs are outspoken libertarians and have quite forcefully denounced Obama's attacks on privacy, freedom of speech, and journalism.
DeleteP.S. Isn't "hunting down government whistleblowers" something journalists are supposed to do?
As the kids say: wut.
DeleteDo you know what a whistleblower is? Do you understand that a whistleblower reveals, at risk to self and out of concern for the public interest, information about possibly illegal acts by their employer?
Why in the world would journalists "hunt down" someone like that? Journalists ENCOURAGE people like that.
So journalists sit around on their thumbs waiting for whistleblowers to find them? They must be even lazier than we thought.
DeleteUm . . . that's what makes them whistleblowers. Only they (and not journalists) have the specific knowledge of a corrupt situation deep inside an organization. So, they blow the whistle. On their own. They decide to do it. On their own. The probably don't even know a single journalist, yet they decide to act. They don't wait for an invitation from a journalist, or from anyone else. They don't blow the whistle for the benefit of journalists. They blow the whistle for the benefit of the public (or shareholders, etc.). Journalists encourage this kind of behavior because part of their job is to hold institutions accountable. They encourage whistleblowers, in part, by keeping their identities secret. In some states, there are laws on the books that provide journalists with legal protection to do this very thing.
DeleteEverything about the Koch Bros. just scares me.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteWhy do some people need bogeymen like the Kochs — and why does this site censor that very valid question?
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