Thursday, October 17, 2013

Spooked by NSA, eBay founder plans hard-hitting news site

Via Bill 
 

 Billionaire Pierre Omidyar is worried that the free press won't be so free after mass surveillance and aggressive policies toward whistle-blowers get through with it. He's decided to take action.

Alarmed at the potential threat to a free press posed by aggressive attitudes toward leakers and by the National Security Agency's seemingly boundless spying powers, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar is set to pour at least $250 million into a new kind of journalism outfit.

"I have always been of the opinion that the right kind of journalism is a critical part of our democracy," Omidyar is quoted as saying in a PressThink blog item posted Wednesday by media critic and former NYU journalism chair Jay Rosen.

The eBay founder, who with projects like community news site Civil Beat has previously moved into journalistic territory, has tapped Glenn Greenwald to help build a team of "independent journalists with expertise, and a voice, and a following" who can practice the art of deep-dive investigative reporting.

More @ CNET

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