First Look says Omidyar to stay out of newsroom | Capital New York

First Look Media C.E.O. and publisher Pierre Omidyar has set aside a reported $250 million for the growing network of websites, but is vowing to stay out of their daily editorial affairs.

A statement on the company's website on Monday said that the eBay co-founder "has no involvement in the newsroom's day-to-day operations."

"All editorial decisions at First Look—from story assignments and blog posts to headlines and style guides—are made exclusively by our team of editors and reporters. Questions of journalism—what issues to cover, and how best to cover them—belong entirely to our journalists," the statement continued.

The post on editorial independence followed a report by Pando Daily's Paul Carr this weekend on visits paid to the White House by Omdiyar and his wife, Pamela, as well as representatives of their philanthropic group, Omidyar Network. Carr argued that Omidyar's ties to the Obama White House could present a conflict of interest for a news organization ostensibly built on reporting on the administration's intelligence policies.

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Omidyar founded First Look using his considerable personal resources last year after hiring Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill to found their own investigative "digital magazine," The Intercept, in the wake of their Edward Snowden scoop. The former Gawker editor John Cook joined the site as its editor in chief this week. 

First Look also recently hired another firebrand, Matt Taibbi, away from Rolling Stone to start his own digital enterprise.

Jay Rosen, an advisor to First Look, characterized the Monday statement in a tweet as "First Look Media continu[ing] to define itself."

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Author: Nicole Levyfollow this reporter

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