Greenwald exits Guardian for new Omidyar media venture

Hopefully this will see integrity return to real, good quality investigative journalism in the media in general instead of "news" being used as fodder for political and commercial interests. It becomes tiring having to scroll through Fox, CNN, CBC, BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The Times and other news agencies trying to piece some form of the truth based on reading between the lines of half truths and unchecked "facts" put in place to suit the story rather than the other way around.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

I wonder what happens if Snowden decides to stick with The Guardian? :-)

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?