Greenwald exits Guardian for new Omidyar media venture(reuters.com)
reuters.com
Greenwald exits Guardian for new Omidyar media venture
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/15/us-usa-security-greenwald-idUSBRE99E18D20131015
10 comments
The Guardian is actually one of the few organisations with its ownership structure set up for editorial independence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian#Ownership. I guess Greenwald knows what he's doing but I'd struggle to give more credibility to a news organisation backed by some billionaire than one with an editorial board deliberately structured to provide independence.
I agree the Guardian is probably one of the few news sources i trusted more than most. I'm thinking he was offered freedoms that the guardian COULDN'T offer him or the chance to run a full team of journalists like himself. I doubt he will be tamed by any organization. We will see.
The Guardian still depends on advertising and senior leadership runs in elite circles and is subject to political influence.
Whenever I make this argument, a historian I know retorts that media bias is older than the country; the only difference now is the veneer of impartiality. Founding-era newspapers were forthright with and proud of their leanings.
To answer your question: Mainstream news has had a structural bias since at least the 60s as Chomsky and Herman describe in their book "Manufacturing Consent".
Yeah, while I have respect for Greenwald's work, I struggle with the notion that a news organisation with a billionaire as its backer can maintain a fully independent editorial policy.
Chomsky and Herman point to five distorting filters which I think are prevalent in most mainstream news organisations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_The_Poli...
Chomsky and Herman point to five distorting filters which I think are prevalent in most mainstream news organisations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_The_Poli...
Of course the news organization will be biased in favor of the financier and his interests. But those interests are presumably far narrower than the interests of a mainstream news organization that has to contend with a wide breadth of advertisers and political entities.
I'm interested to see what the financing model will be. One of the biggest structural problems with the MSM is their reliance on advertising and the editorial constraints that inevitably imposes. While I respect and admire Greenwald, a key takeaway from the NSA leaks is that a system that relies on the beneficence of its key actors is a system that will be abused. If the only defence against editorial degradation is the personal ethics of Greenwald and Omidyar, then it's only a matter of time before the venture's editorial oversight is captured by its financial interests.
As much as I dislike paying for news, I'd far rather see them model themselves after the Economist than CNN.
As much as I dislike paying for news, I'd far rather see them model themselves after the Economist than CNN.
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Civil Beat is a really incredible news source that has done some really deep reporting on Honolulu's local politics. If Glenn Greenwald will be joining CB then it's likely the website will grow out of its regional roots into a more national news site. I'd love to see the same investigative reporting done at a national level.
It's a new venture.
Ah! My mistake.. I was a little too excited when I saw Civil Beat in the article.
Hopefully this new venture is a bigger version of CB though.
I read a few weeks back that Greenwald has wanted to publish more information at a higher pace, and The Guardian didn't as they thought it'd be too much. It's probably a golden opportunity for him to publish as much as he wants, whenever he wants.
Either way it'll be interesting, I certainly can't see The Guardian stopping with it's interest in the security apparatus even without Greenwald.
Either way it'll be interesting, I certainly can't see The Guardian stopping with it's interest in the security apparatus even without Greenwald.
This is disappointing to me. I see it as Greenwald using his new found publicity for a better deal. After reading the recent Guardian profile in the New Yorker it's hard not to root for them.
It's also upsetting that this will dilute and interrupt the NSA reporting, something Snowden has worked so hard to avoid.
It's also upsetting that this will dilute and interrupt the NSA reporting, something Snowden has worked so hard to avoid.
Greenwald only had a New York Times Best Selling Book on the Bush Administration and its abuses of power. And he had one of the most-read blogs on the Interent, after 9 months of blogging.
If Russ Feingold can read from his blog during Censure hearings, he can handle a little bit of well-deserved fame for his hard work.
If Russ Feingold can read from his blog during Censure hearings, he can handle a little bit of well-deserved fame for his hard work.
> Beat aimed to create a new online journalism model with paid subscriptions and respectful comment threads
Well good luck with that. To lose faith in humanity, one has to look no further than comment threads on news sites. The current comments on the Reuters article are already facepalm-inducing.
Well good luck with that. To lose faith in humanity, one has to look no further than comment threads on news sites. The current comments on the Reuters article are already facepalm-inducing.
I don't think one should judge humanity based on comments on the internet. The people behind those comments would respond (and debate) much differently in real life, when they get direct feedback (verbal and/or nonverbal) for the opinions they unfilteredly and impulsively spout onto the interwebz.
That's exactly the point: these are people's unfiltered thoughts, and it makes me lose faith in my fellow man (or at least fellow American) whenever I read such comments.
Worth noting that Pierre Omidyar has been a non-stop critic of the NSA's spying activities since the Snowden leaks first broke:
https://twitter.com/pierre
Given the extraordinary power of the villains on the other side of this, Omidyar seems to be taking a lot of risk here. It's trivially easy for the US Government to burn a billionaire on any number of trumped up SEC charges. Whoops, small trading rule infraction, better be careful not to declare your innocence in a way that materially affects a stock price or it's off to prison for you.
https://twitter.com/pierre
Given the extraordinary power of the villains on the other side of this, Omidyar seems to be taking a lot of risk here. It's trivially easy for the US Government to burn a billionaire on any number of trumped up SEC charges. Whoops, small trading rule infraction, better be careful not to declare your innocence in a way that materially affects a stock price or it's off to prison for you.
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Does this mean that he is done with the "first wave" the of Snowden revelations, and or that he doesn't trust me The Guardian, and or that he wants to to capitalize at his peak popularity moment? Was this planned before the Snowden story?
No, he's stated that Omidyar made him an offer too good to refuse. He's very pleased with the Guardian, he's just looking out for #1 here.
I wouldn't trust the Guardian if I were him either. They go to some effort to make it clear that he is not actually an employee.
Like the front page article that he's leaving The Guardian as an employee?
Which article?
From the horse's mouth:
"I'm not on the Guardian staff and have never been an employee."
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/387938465955868672
From the horse's mouth:
"I'm not on the Guardian staff and have never been an employee."
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/387938465955868672
Perhaps I've romanticized journalism in my mind and see the past through rose coloured glasses as we all tend to from time to time, but I feel like journalists used to have integrity and that we could once trust that when they put pen to paper, we could believe in what they wrote... or perhaps we never could and its only as age removes our naivety that we see the world's media for what it is, a sham designed to further political and commercial interests.
I for one should like to see a news agency that spends their time chasing down the facts like CSIs to present the cold hard truth rather than some dumbed down version of events designed to have some political sway. Lets hope the vision for whatever venture this may be is that. Perhaps I can dream.