snip//
"Update 2 10.30.14: Alex Pareene, whom Taibbi brought in as his executive editor,
is indirectly pissing all over the crew of The Intercept for pissing all over his former colleague. More than that, he’s eviscerating Pierre Omidyar. All of it comes by way of an official response to the Intercept piece:
Working with Matt Taibbi was one of the best experiences of my career and I’d be thrilled to have the opportunity to do so again. From my perspective, the management of First Look Media repeatedly took incidents that should’ve been minor hiccups of the sort experienced at any media company or startup and, through incompetence, escalated them into full-blown crises. Having worked closely with Matt since he hired me, I witnessed no behavior on his part that I would characterize as “abusive,” and his hostility was reserved for his superiors, not his subordinates. He certainly was no more “combative” than any number of other editors I’ve worked with, including Intercept editor-in-chief John Cook. I also categorically reject the allegation that there was a gendered component to his managerial issues. We were successfully working to address those issues when First Look once again stepped in to fuck things up. I regret that the world won’t get a chance to see Matt Taibbi’s Racket.
Adding: You’ve gotta love that this is the first interesting story The Intercept has published.
Bottom line: First Look Media is a fucking disaster. But it’s admittedly kind of fun to watch this absurd soap opera.
Also, if I were Taibbi I’d have hired a lawyer by now to take on what’s being written about him. Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t — but it’s pretty defamatory.
http://thedailybanter.com/2014/10/matt-taibbi-first-look-media-thats-good-thing/
Oh, and..
The 4 Questions Glenn Greenwald and Pierre Omidyar Still Haven’t Answered
snip//
Pando Daily writers
Paul Carr, Mark Ames and Yasha Levine have asked Greenwald to state whether he will hold Omidyar to the same standards he holds everyone else to, particularly given the fact his new boss supported going after journalists who leak documents from private companies. Back in 2009, Omidyar tweeted this after TechCrunch published leaked documents from Twitter:
To summarize, here are the questions Omidyar and Greenwald have yet to answer:
1. Will Greenwald accept that there’s a conflict of interest in entering into a business partnership with Omidyar whose existing business is in an alleged partnership with the NSA?
2. If so, will Greenwald release any and all documents pertaining to PayPal’s collaboration with the NSA, if they do indeed exist?
3. Are there any contractual agreements with Omidyar about the release of the remaining NSA files and NewCo? Will Omidyar and Greenwald publish them for the public to see?
4. Will Greenwald pledge to cover any potentially corrupt Omidyar’s business practices and hold him and his NSA collaborating business to the same standards he has everyone else?
Greenwald is an expert at applying ludicrously high standards of transparency and accountability to anyone he chooses to focus his laser-like attentions on. When it comes to himself, not so much evidently.
"
Greenwald has repeatedly mocked criticisms aimed at his new organization’s apparent conflicts of interest, stating that all journalists make money and all media organizations have wealthy owners. This is true, but it’s also a lawyerly trick to deflect attention away from himself and not answer any questions"
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/12/why-wikileaks-doesn/