Pierre Omidyar’s First Look Media courted a number of high-profile investigative journalists during a “hiring binge,” Sarah Ellison writes in Vanity Fair. New York Times reporter James Risen, Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman and Eileen Sullivan (who the CIA later tipped about an Intercept scoop) all turned down jobs, Ellison reports.
Some other nuggets:
- Some First Look journalists, including Matt Taibbi and Jeremy Scahill, weren’t too keen about the startup’s task management software, Asana. Scahill called it “up your Asana”.
- First Look employees debated “for days” about what to include in the Intercept story about how Matt Taibbi left the organization; it was not reviewed by First Look’s lawyer before publication.
