Taibbi Decamps First Look

I know. Old news, right? It happened last Tuesday after all, at least that's what we're led to believe.

Matt Taibbi, superstar media rabble rouser against the titans of finance (among other malevolence), blew that pop stand called First Look Media, Pierre Omidyar's shrinking, vanishing, evaporating Transformation of the Media Entire, though some of the reports seem to indicate that the Taibbi run operation (to have been called "The Racket," heh) ground to a standstill during the summer.

Of course many people noticed that when Taibbi left Rolling Stone in February, his voice against the malefactors of great wealth was all but silenced. He put a book out, true, but his regular postings and articles pretty much disappeared. It was as if he'd been sucked into a black hole, not unlike the case with many of those intrepid journalists acquired by Pierre Omidyar for the sole publication of his New Media start-up venture called The Intercept (what an interesting name.)

The excuse for their long silence was that they were doing something completely unprecedented, and "it's hard." Yes, well... that's no excuse at all. We knew it was "hard" long before Pierre was a gleam in his parents' eyes in Paris. Pierre knew it was "hard" long before the First Look venture was launched, since he'd been running a news outlet in Hawaii for years. The participants knew it was "hard" -- or should have -- since all of them had been part of media institutions and start up ventures for years. Nothing about what they were doing or planning was either mysterious or unprecedented in the least.

Matt Taibbi, among all of them, had had some of the most intimate experience with the genre of muckraking, polemics, and going toe to toe with the gub'mint, dating from his days at The eXile in Moscow.

These people knew what they were about, and they knew what this venture of Pierre's could be if he stayed out of the way. But apparently he didn't.

Back during the Days of Silence, Jeremy Scahill (remember him?) posted something that strongly suggested that Pierre Omidyar was a constant bugbear in the then non-existent "office" of First Look Media. He was, according to Jeremy, the most prolific and most persistent of the users of interoffice communications. This was dismissed at the time by apologists and interference runners like Glenn Greenwald as nothing more than the ordinary and expected interest by the chief (actually only) investor in this Startling and Revolutionary New Media Venture that was not publishing anything, but would be. Soon. Eventually. One day.

Critics nodded off and allowed as how First Look was finding its feet, yadda yadda, and we, the Rabble, should think nothing of the reports periodically filtering out of its shrouded confines that all was not happy or well within.

Marcy Wheeler left, not so much in a huff it seemed as she was in a state of utter ennui. She said she would write in more detail about the reasons why she left, but she never has. In fact, after the initial flurry of interest, she seems to have dropped the subject altogether, focusing on her blog which never stopped publishing during her brief fling as a -- something undefined -- within First Look. My impression was that she was kept on call but her skills were practically never utilized by an outfit that was having immense birthing pains due to conflicting egos among the power players.

Until they duked it out, there was no point...

And who were "they?" Greenwald and Pierre primarily. It was interesting to me that only in April did Pierre do the "visioning" thing that all start-ups in my experience do long before they actually Start. Up. Only in April did Pierre and his team get around to this "visioning" process, and apparently, none of those already working (sort of) at the New Media Venture (ie: the WordPress group blog known as The Intercept) were included.

Not even the invaluable exGawker hoo-hah known as John Cook whose contributions to The Intercept at that point were frankly bizarre. No one already involved with the Venture was involved with the "vision thing" apparently. Fascinating.

Soon enough -- sometime in the summer -- and announcement was found in Pierre's blog at First Look that His Vision had been pared back substantially, that basically he was pulling the plug and that multi-magazine format for news and whatnot was not going to happen. The start-up New Media Transformation Thing was essentially over with. It was too "hard." Yes, well...

At that time, The Intercept was still not publishing more than sporadically, and what it did publish was generally Old News, recycled from other publications that had the scoop well before anyone at The Intercept noticed. Jeremy Scahill had disappeared altogether. Greenwald and Devereaux were essentially the only ones bothering with The Intercept, but most of the others on the masthead weren't publishing anywhere, not The Intercept, not anywhere else. John Cook said that it would take as long as it took to get the thing up and running, and until it was up and running, The Intercept would be functioning essentially as Greenwald's blog, so everyone could just sit down and shut up.

OK then.

For many, that was the point at which The Intercept ceased having any interest. Regardless of what they would eventually publish, it didn't matter anymore, in part because of John Cook's hostility toward his ostensible audience, in part because The Intercept had become a running gag, a joke. It has not recovered.

Although it has now "launched" -- at least we assume that what is up and running now is the "launch." Hard to say. There was no announcement, no fanfare, no high-stepping marching bands. One day, a re-designed and much fuller "product" appeared. All kinds of other writers, some of whom had never been announced, bylined the almost daily posts, sometimes multiple posts a day, not unlike Gawker, in fact. Well, how about that.

OK. Now what? Specifically what of Taibbi's Thing? Nothing. No word, no product, not even an occasional update. Literally nothing. Fall -- the proposed launch season for Taibbi's Thing -- approached, and there continued to be nothing. Fall arrived. Nothing.

Oh dear. Here we go again. All that fanfare leading nowhere. Pierre was turning into quite the Pied Piper, eh?

And then word came, finally, at the end of October that Taibbi had walked. The End. Over With. Done.

Shortly, within a day or so, Taibbi was announced as back at Rolling Stone and he would have a piece in next week's issue.

What is so startling about this is that the endless silence and delays at First Look contrast sharply with Taibbi's instant re-emergence at Rolling Stone. This confirms what I've long suspected: delay and silence is the policy at First Look, the veritable point of it. This is the media "transformation" Pierre was nattering on about. In other words, rather than providing news and information, string your audience along and provide... silence. Say nothing, do nothing. Pretend that's the Future you envisioned all along.

Well, maybe it is. The No-News Transformation...

True enough, The Intercept has been churning out content regularly for several weeks now. Some of it is substantial. But they seem to have lost their audience along the way. I check it maybe once a week or so. Nothing much strikes me as all that important, but I'm sure there are those who think every word is golden. That's fine.

On the other hand, Taibbi's Aborted Thing might have been kick-ass if it had ever launched. But it didn't and from the sketchy and self-serving reports about what happened, I suspect it was never intended to launch. It was intended as a holding pen for Mr. Taibbi while other, more important things were attended to.

Such as the New Zealand Thing, the Ukraine Thing, and perhaps most importantly for Pierre's fortunes, the India Thing. I'm sure there are many more Things in Pierre's repertoire. First Look is among the least important of his many Things.

Regime changes favoring his business plans are far more important and immediate, and despite its long-term propaganda potential, First Look does not serve those interests and plans. Not yet anyway.

Taibbi's Thing never would in any case. Not if he were pursuing the Oligarchy. Of which, never ever forget, Pierre is a part and a player.

The self-serving "inside story" posted by The Intercept confirms a lot of the speculation regarding Pierre's interference in the First Look projects, while insistently denying that his constant interference was in any way directed at shaping the editorial content of the projects. It's self-evidently false on its face, as anyone who is determining who is hired/fired and what they can and can't spend money on is shaping editorial content thereby. He or she doesn't need to issue directives from the Corner Office to get what he or she wants. If one doesn't know that about the executive suites, one doesn't know much of anything, does one?

The "inside story" proposes to cast Pierre as a naif and incompetent -- which is absurd. He is neither. He knows exactly what he wants and he knows how to get it, long and short term, and he's doing it. He has the money to get pretty much anything, and he seems to have the will and intent that goes well beyond petty interests like Transformative Media.

What he's doing is utilizing his wealth and his power the way much of the Oligarchy does, to shape and control the forces of society and government to his liking. He's literally creating or recreating societies and governments; in that he's much like the rest of his class. Of course the God Complex only goes so far, but Pierre has barely begun his quest for divinity.

First Look is little more than a side show in that project. And Taibbi never would have fit into it.

Never.

The question I have now is whether he will defy Pierre and tell all. I suspect not, partly because of the implict threats in the "inside story" to go after him hammer and tong if he gets too uppity. The whole point of the "inside story" was to get the approved narrative out there before Taibbi can do anything, and to make sure that Taibbi understands who's the boss of him. Basically, it was a threat.

By juxtaposing The Intercept's (ie: Greenwald's) "successful" negotiations with Pierre versus Taibbi's "unsuccessful" ones, and by pointing out that it was Pierre who determined what and who would be successful and what/who not, and that a "case" can be brought against Taibbi if Pierre decides to (and it can be dropped, too) Taibbi is put on notice to play nice  -- or else. It wasn't even subtle.

These boys play dirty.

They play to win. And in this case, Pierre has won.

That may change, but I won't hold my breath.

Whatever else he is, Taibbi is no fool. Those who have gone up against Pierre, such as Matt's former colleagues over at Pando have found out they don't get very far, and it can be very much to their advantage to play ball... the smears are prepped for launch...

Taibbi, if he knows anything, knows this.

Nice to know that he's back at Rolling Stone. Will his voice be muted?

We'll know soon enough.

--------------------------------------------
UPDATE:
Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but the Omidyar exposé promised has now been published by New York Magazine. The title is evocative: "The Pierre Omidyar Insurgency." Given the apparently numerous examples of Omidyar's meddling in governments in many parts of the world, it seems a fitting title.

FURTHER UPDATE:
Have now read the Omidyar puff-or-hit piece in New York Magazine. Those who have been following the Omidyar saga (at least since the announcement last October that Greenwald would be moving on to his turf) know most of the stuff in the article -- and a probably a great deal more, as Andrew Rice says essentially nothing about Omidyar Network's involvement in regime change. In fact, the "insurgency" of the title is more of an abstraction than a concrete reality.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Rice was bought off, but he seems to be treading on eggs. Nevertheless, partisans will call it a hit piece (everything that isn't perfectly aligned with the current party line is a hit piece) whereas those who don't fall at Omidyar's feet will likely call it a puff piece.

Those who have been following the saga all along, though, will learn next to nothing.

In the Midst of This Blood Summer

It would appear that Pierre Omidyar has decided to pull the plug on his Grand Plan to Transform the Media at First Look and content himself with a blog or two that "experiment" with various means and methods of... what... exactly?

That's still something of a mystery, but the Grand Plan appears to be dead.

Some time back, Pierre put up a blog post that you wouldn't have known about unless you're following his twits or those of some of his stable of writers closely. I think I noticed it in passing through the comments on some post at The Intercept. It got little or no notice outside the world of the First Look at any rate, but it is an interesting walk back from all the promises announced and tub-thumped for so very long by the First Lookers and Interceptors -- without any discernible results for month after month, except one: the huge stable of writers Pierre had assembled essentially stopped writing once they signed with Pierre. Even the ever prolix and prolific Greenwald's output diminished to practically nothing for weeks at a time.

Reducing or eliminating output by formerly busy and sometimes power-questioning writers appeared to be the main purpose of First Look, as many observers pointed out, sometimes unkindly. Jeremy Scahill essentially disappeared; Matt Taibbi likewise. Oh they did their rounds for their book/movie tours, but that had nothing whatever to do with First Look or anything else that Pierre was involved in (so far as we know. He had his had in many ventures.) Laura Poitras has never contributed to The Intercept, nor has Liliana Segura. Marcy Wheeler bailed out months ago after contributing one piece. There were occasional pieces of generally "old news" by Ryan Gallagher and Ryan Devereaux, sometimes co-bylined by Greenwald, but likely not co-written by him. There were a few articles by Murtaza Hussain. But apart from that, practically nothing, month after month.

The lack of production and the frequency of excuses was striking, especially given all the other news startups going balls to the wall at around the same time, with special mention of Quartz, Vox, and Vice, but they are far from the only ones. They and many other online news sites have been running circles around Pierre's First Look (that was getting nowhere, with its one "magazine" that so rarely published and seemed quite flaccid when it did.) There was and is simply no comparison between First Look's practically absent content and the daily sometimes extraordinary content of a dozen or more online news ventures that were actually cranking out... erm... news.

So. John Cook appeared to order everyone to sit down and shut up and wait for however long it would take to get the operation up and running; it wasn't ready yet, and all the nay-sayers were poopy-pants. Greenwald would post when and if he wanted, and everyone else would be on hiatus until the site was "ready." So just shut up. Then he disappeared again, they said "on vacation". Who knew? Who cared?

First Look was looking more and more like the Last Look Back as news was being broken all over the media long before anything would appear in the one faltering "magazine" that was essentially a group blog on a broken WordPress platform, a group blog that hardly ever published or updated.

First Look and The Intercept were a joke.

Pierre had to intervene because this month-after-month of nothing made him look ridiculous for devoting $50 million or $250 million to... nothing. Wags made mock, to say the least.

Pierre's primary claim is that the enterprise is still very much a "startup." Which means, essentially, that it doesn't actually exist as a going concern, and it may never.

It is a still experimental experiment that may never go anywhere at all (startups are like that you know) and it is no longer positioned to be this "transformative" media thing-a-ma-bob that it was promoted as, but just what it will be, nobody knows. There will be Greenwald's blog and the now re-conceived Taibbi Thing (to debut sometime, one day... maybe) and that's about it.

Pierre will continue to support something similar to an investigative journalism enterprise, by funding things like travel and accommodations and legal fees and whatnot, but what comes of it, if anything, may be published elsewhere in already extant outlets rather than at anything new and transformative that Pierre has created out of the air.

In other words, First Look, as it was conceived is dead.

It ain't gonna be that.

And it may never be anything.

Got that?

Good.

There's a message here somewhere...
---------------------------------------------

In the meantime, Telesur English is up and running. Those devilish Chavistas. Check it out. 

For the Record -- First Look Media and NBC News Partnership

The partnership between NBC News and Pierre Omidyar's First Look Media was briefly noted on NBC Evening News Tuesday, then was made quite explicit on tonight's news when a promo announced the impending "exclusive" interview of Edward Snowden by Brian Williams in Moscow.

Eric Wemple at the Washington Post has now expanded the announcement somewhat:

The interview is sure to produce some memorable exchanges, but the way that NBC News pulled off the coup is noteworthy as well. NBC News has a “collaboration agreement” with the outfit that these days publishes Greenwald’s work — First Look Media, the venture funded by billionaire and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. Greenwald is a staffer at the Intercept, First Look’s digital magazine on national security matters.

So did the Greenwald “collaboration agreement” snare the Snowden interview for NBC News? For starters, Snowden is a strong-willed sort unlikely to take interview orders from anyone, though his relationship with Greenwald is airtight (he’s in a just-published selfie with Greenwald & Co. in Russia). According to the network source, NBC News approached Snowden via several avenues, one of them being through Greenwald. Though Greenwald didn’t negotiate the terms of the agreement, the NBC News source concedes that Greenwald is among a small number of people who can assist in making contact with Snowden, who is living in Moscow.

The agreement between NBC News and First Look Media contains no financial terms, says the NBC source. It’s merely what the network calls a co-reporting arrangement, in which the two participating outlets share resources in working on the almost always complicated surveillance stories that spring from the Snowden document dump. Responding to an e-mail inquiry, Greenwald himself says that the agreement “simply provides that we will work together on selected NSA stories, on a story-by-story basis, when it will help the reporting to do so.”

To complicate matters a bit, Greenwald worked as a freelancer for NBC News in between his departure from the Guardian and the launch of the Intercept. Together they produced four stories, with Greenwald receiving $750 a pop. In this February investigation, for instance, NBC News used Snowden documents to expose how British intelligence waged war on hackers. Greenwald is credited as a “special contributor” for the piece. In January, NBC News published a story stemming from Snowden documents on how British intelligence spied on Facebook and YouTube. That one, too, listed Greenwald as a special contributor.

There is more at the link.

If anyone wants to look into it, there is most certainly a story to be found in the various arrangements that have been made with and by Omidyar, his employees, and the media enterprises they have partnered with, but I don't know who would ((dare)) find out the whole story and publish it.

We live in interesting times...

[Note: there have been previous indications of the partnership between NBC and Greenwald/First Look, though the first time I heard it mentioned explicitly was on Tuesday. If anyone has an earlier explicit reference, it would be interesting to put together a timeline...]

"Cluelessness"

It would be sad if it weren't so stupid, but apparently there is a full-on media war between factions of the ruling class, or that's apparently what we are supposed to think now that the floundering and relatively content-free "Intercept," backed by Pierre Omidyar (eBay, PayPal), is being tweaked by the Big Bullies at Pando, led by Mark Ames and Paul Carr, and backed by a plethora of Silicon Valley billionaires headed by Paul Thiel (PayPal) and Marc Andressen (too many SV software and venture capital endeavors to count). Soon after this supposed media war began, Eric Wemple of the Washington Post chimed in with a mild criticism of disingenuousness at First Look, which had the potential to add the WaPo's owner, Jeff Bezos (Amazon), to the mix, but it seems that for the moment, he has declined. Yesterday, though, Pando published another exposé of monumental Greenwaldian hypocrisy, posting a Bloggingheads video "debate" between Greenwald and Ben Smith of Politico, wherein Greenwald rakes Smith over the coals regarding who finances Politico and what their ("obvious") influence in the newsroom must be.

I saw the "debate" when it happened in 2007, and I read and commented on Greenwald's Salon posts leading up to it. The issue seemed clear enough at the time: big ticket financial backers of media enterprises are likely to influence the way the news is covered -- or if it is covered at all -- simply because they pay the bills and the salaries of their employees. Even if there is no direct contact between the finance side and the newsroom, the influence will be there. As I put it, "Money may not be speech, but it sure talks." (NOTE: Greenwald had only been at Salon for a few months at the time, and tweaking "establishment" media for click bait was part of his "beat" as it were. This was one of the first times at Salon that his goading resulted in a real donnybrook and "debate." Of course, Salon, being the Pioneer in the Online Magazine Field, could accurately be characterized as about as "establishment" as it could get among its internet compatriots. Then again, it was always in financial crisis and needed the clicks... but that's another story for another time.) :-P

The import of this "debate" now is the contrast between Greenwald's questions and certain knowledge then -- that the well known right wing management and funders of Politico must influence the news choices and skew of Politico because they pay the bills -- and the utter cluelessness and disinterest that Greenwald and Marcy have regarding Omidyar and his influence on the virtual "newsroom(s)" at First Look (they know nothing, they care nothing, they have complete "independence" so what their funder and chief does or believes is of no consequence to them.)

In retrospect, it's clear as crystal that not only was Greenwald's 2007 "debate" over Politico's management and funders primarily click-bait, but so were many, many other set-tos between Greenwald and various legal and media personalities. Positions were taken that were for the purpose of the "debate" -- but they did not necessarily have anything to do with personal beliefs or ideology. They were merely taken for the purpose of injecting ideas and getting people to pay attention. Clicks. Forget it, Jake. It's just business.

The pretense of disinterest and cluelessness about Pierre Omidyar's various political and financial operations around the world is extraordinarily -- monumentally -- disingenuous if it is true. To assert that another media outlet's coverage of the news is obviously influenced by the acts and politics of those who fund and operate it, but that First Look is somehow not influenced in any way by Pierre Omidyar's or Glenn Greenwald's positions, acts and interests borders on an absurdist comedy. Of course there is influence, both direct and subtle, and no amount of alleged "independence" can make it go away. As Greenwald rightly noted to Ben Smith all those years ago, journalists "know the work they do ought to be pleasing to the people who sign their paychecks." Of course, it's self-evident. If their work were not "pleasing" to the man or woman with the power of the purse, the journalists in question are not there. Duh.

It was ever thus, it is true everywhere, and it is as true for Greenwald and crew as it is for anyone else in the media business -- if someone else is paying the bills. If their work is not pleasing to the man who pays the bills, their work is not there.  This shouldn't be hard to understand. If one's work is not "pleasing," one is not hired in the first place; if one's work ceases to be "pleasing," one is dismissed. One does not have the option of "displeasing" the boss and staying in one's position, and one knows this -- or at least one should.

"Independence" has nothing to do with it. Or rather, what it has to do with it is that the "independence" being asserted is part of what is found "pleasing" by the boss. Assertion of "independence" is what the boss wants. Got it? What "independence" means in practice is intentionally unstated.

Apparently, for a recent example, cluelessness and disinterest in the boss's (Omidyar's) financial and political activities and interests is pleasing to the boss. When the matter is the financial and political activities and interests of some other media outlet, interfering government agency or targeted organization, however, be it Politico or what you will, cluelessness and disinterest are replaced by dogged investigation, accusation and exposure, which in that case is also pleasing to the boss. You see how this works?

Well of course. It's glaringly obvious.

Greenwald's Apologetics

I've seen enough of Greenwald's -- and others' -- apologetics on behalf of Omidyar and his New Media Venture First Look and on behalf of those employed by it to be a little bit sickened to slog through one of them again. Greenwald is even more prolix than I am, and he is known for being less than forthcoming. Marcy Wheeler has also issued a statement. There are apparently several others out there, but I'll stick with Greenwald for now.

Background

As a lot of people seem to know -- but many are blissfully oblivious, may they remain at peace! -- Mark Ames over at Pando, one of America's most inveterate Big (enough) Media journalists, a muck-raker of muck-rakers, and all around bon vivant terrible, posted a piece yesterday at Pando in which he pointed to documentary evidence that was apparently quite easy to find that Pierre Omidyar, through his Omidyar Network, has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Ukrainian opposition that recently succeeded in overthrowing the Yanukovych regime in Kiev.

Omidyar's efforts were aligned with those of a plethora of State Department agencies and activists, NGOs and foundations which together poured millions and millions of dollars into the Yanukovych opposition, providing abundant financial support at the very least. The CIA has also long been rumored to be a part of the funding and support mix keeping the protests going and eventually enabling the end of Yanukovych's rather inept rule.

The fact of direct American involvement in funding the Ukrainian opposition is hardly a surprise, as these things are going on all over the world all the time, and they have a long and brutal history. The surprise, if there is one, is Omidyar's direct funding of opposition groups to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. So far as I've seen, no other billionaire is directly funding the opposition in Ukraine.

Ames said he was clued to look into the matter of outside funding of Ukrainian opposition groups by a series of tweets by Marcy Wheeler which mentioned coups and dark or deep forces and American financial and other backing...

And shortly he found documentary evidence of Omidyar funding of Ukrainian opposition groups in the archives of one of those groups. You can find just about anything online if you look hard enough, eh?

Ames suggested that there might be a journalistic conflict of interest, hmmmm, if Omidyar is funding oppositions while his stable of journalists are... ignorant?

Hard to say.

At any rate, after stonewalling yesterday, both Greenwald and Wheeler have "responded" to the Ames piece with what can only be called Apologetics, and like the Catholic kind, one can believe them or not, but it is difficult or impossible to argue with them, for they ultimately rely on Faith Alone.

GREENWALD

I shall now attempt to do a running commentary on Greenwald's response. (Italicised segments are my paraphrases of Greenwald's statement at the Intercept.)

A. Intro. I just found out about this 30 minutes ago, sorry I haven't responded before now. I don't follow Twitter all the time, you know.

1. This would be called a "dodge" in any rational situation, as the story was posted many hours before someone apparently alerted him to it, and Wheeler had been furiously Twittering with Paul Carr for hours already over it. To suggest that Greenwald hadn't been alerted earlier than "30 minutes ago" is disingenuous at best. 

B. I have not spoken to anyone, not Pierre or anyone else in the world about this matter...

1. "Spoken" maybe not, but there is always Twitter and various other communications media that don't require one to "speak"  with whomever one is communicating. To say he hasn't "spoken" says nothing about other forms of communications.

C. I barely know what this is all about, but I'll try to address this and other issues I feel are important. 

1.  "I had no prior knowledge..." (h/t Tanya Harding) A classic dodge. Lawyers and politicians use it all the time. "You've caught me unawares, I know so very little, but if you'll permit me, I'll attempt to respond to your questions one at a time, and if you'll allow me to, I'll make a statement about what I believe is really important here."

D. While I literally know nothing about this article, in five minutes on the Google Machine, I discovered that this supposed Bombshell about Omidyar's funding of a Ukrainian opposition group was already long since made public because the investment was announced on the Omidyar Network website years ago. So obviously there's no story here. Move along.

1. Uh, "investment?" Ok then, so if this was an investment, one would assume earnings -- a return on investment, no? How, exactly, would that work? Oh, never mind.
2. A grant is not an "investment," but in classic Greenwald style, he conflates the two, at one point referring to an "investment" and in the very next paragraph referring to a $3 million "grant" that covers the same thing as his previous "investment."  This is a form of trickery called "sleight of hand," in which terms get deliberately jumbled so that later he can say with a straight face, "I don't know what you are referring to."

E. I am as concerned as anyone else with the financial dealings of corporations and billionaires who fund journalistic enterprises, really, I am, but in this case, it doesn't look to me like the Omidyar Network is ashamed of funding this (single) Ukrainian opposition outfit. Look! They announced it years ago for all the world to see! Hardly hiding it at all.

1. This is both disingenuous and nonresponsive as nobody claims they were ashamed of it or trying to hide it. The fact that a grant (or was it an "investment?" You decide) was announced in a 2011 press release and detailed on a website doesn't indicate anything about how well it was publicized. But that isn't the issue. 

F. I am so confused! What is the "scandal" here? I thought just 72 hours ago EVERYONE was on the side of the opposition. Now we're not supposed to be? When did this change come about? And why in Heaven's Name should First Look be expected to respond to this nothingburger? I didn't support the opposition. Really. In fact, I was called a "Putin Shill" for NOT supporting the rebellion. I'm on your side. Really.

1. Nonresponsive, disingenuous, and distractive. The issue is not that this is a "scandal" but that it is potentially important that a billionaire who is funding a New Media venture is also backing opposition efforts in foreign lands. It has nothing to do with whether Greenwald supports the Ukrainian coup or not. It's not about him in that respect.

G. I am so hurt! My life is in danger! I've been accused of being a criminal by no less than a Congressman of the United States of America! I take these things very seriously! Now I am being accused of not being on the right side of the Ukrainian uprising! This is not fair! This is not right! This will not stand! I put my life on the line, and everyone I work with is a fierce critic of government and corporations, and I will not have you accuse me of being a CIA tool! Stop it!

1.  Nonresponsive, disingenuous, distractive, irrelevant. This is what's known as "grandstanding." It has nothing -- at all -- to do with the article in question, it's merely Greenwald's plea for attention. In fact, Ames never mentions the CIA. We may have to come back to this erm... slip... later.

H. I had no prior knowledge of Omidyar funding of this previously unheard of Ukrainian opposition group, really, I didn't, even though any journalist worth the name should have been able to find it because it was all public and shit and they weren't trying to hide it or anything. I didn't know because I didn't care, I'm a perfessional. It has nothing to do with me. So why would I care? Huh?

1. Typical dodge, but it points to something that, if true, should be worrisome. Basically, Greenwald is using "Lawyer Ethics" -- he'll work for anyone who pays him, and he won't ask questions. That's not journalism. Far from it. The question here is whether he's telling the truth, because if he has never looked into the backgrounds and ties of any of his current/former employers, then he isn't doing even rudimentary due diligence. Or did he, as Alexa O'Brien so elegantly put it, "He fucking lied."

I. No one can tell me what to do! No one! No one! No one! I am INDEPENDENT!!!!! I report what I want to report!!!! Leave me alone! 

1. Irrelevant, nonresponsive, juvenile. 'Nough said.

J. I know you are but what am I? Neener, neener, neener. 

1. Juvenile, puerile, strawman, horseshit. Here Greenwald is accusing Ames, who he refuses to name, of being just like him, unaffected by the "repugnant" views of the of the media outlets they work for. So there. The problem is, Ames hasn't accused Greenwald or anyone else of being "affected," by their employer's political views. That's not the point.

K. I'm not a stooge for the government!

1.   Nobody said he was. But since he's so sensitive to the accusation that isn't made, maybe somebody should look into it...

L.  Everyone who's anyone works for the Oligarchs now, buster, even you, so don't you get on your high horse with me! Even the ACLU gets Soros money. Soros! Soros! Soros!

1.  Irrelevant. Ames has always been very up front about the investors in Pando, and their roles with the organization; Greenwald has always feigned ignorance and/or been evasive when asked about Omidyar and his actual role in First Look. Basically, he won't answer about Omidyar, but he seems to know plenty about the funders of other organizations while claiming to know and care nothing about Omidyar.

M. I'm not responsible for Pierre!!!!

1.   Nobody said you were!!!! Why are you yelling!!!!!

N. Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around.

1. We know. Thank you for sharing.

O. Ames [Whose name I shall not utter, no, no, no, you cannot make me!!!] is a LIAR. I don't have "exclusive access" to the Snowden Hoard. Others have lots of docs too, it's not just ME!!!! LIAR!!!!

1.  Lie. Ames says that he and Poitras have the only "complete" sets of Snowden Docs, something Greenwald has on other occasions acknowledged, but here he implies that Ames claims that Greenwald and Poitras are the only journalists with any of them, but that's simply, obviously and grossly false. Greenwald has done this on other occasions as well when people say he and Poitras have the only "complete" sets of Snowden Docs. He lies and claims they are saying he and Poitras have the only  Snowden docs. Both Greenwald and Poitras are also employed by Omidyar. The issue in dispute is whether Omidyar has access to the documents. Greenwald denies it, but we have only his word to rely on. And that word is... decide for yourself...

P. My history speaks for itself! I don't approve of US Government interference in the business of other countries. I don't know anything about Ukrainia, I don't know anything about Pierre's funding of the Ukrainan opposition, and I DON'T CARE!!!!! 

1.  Note the dodge here: he is opposed to government interference in the affairs of other nations, but he has nothing to say about private foundations or individuals interfering. Nope. Not a word. 

Q. Pierre lets me do and say whatever I want! You can't stop me! And you better not try!

1.   Juvenile, nonresponsive. Tiresome. Has nothing to do with the topic of Omidyar funding of Ukrainian opposition.

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This is typical of Greenwald's defenses and apologetics. It's mostly about something other than the issue at hand, and when the actual topic is addressed, the answer is basically, "I don't care about anything but ME."

That's long been his answer to everything. What about MEEEE?
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Oh snap! Paul Carr, Pando editor, responds to Greenwald's apologetics.

Should Glenn Greenwald ever find himself curious as to what his boss is up to, he can rest assured the answers will always be found right here on Pando.

The whole thing is kind of precious. But I realize that Twit Wars and pissing contests bore a whole lot of people who have actual lives to lead... ;-)

Further Thoughts on the Boy's Club (and a Few Gurlz) Assembled Around The Philanthropic Billonaire

Practically anybody with a Wordpress or Blogspot site produces more content than Pierre Omidyar's flagship entry into the New Media Market.

"The Intercept," so far, has proved itself to be essentially a self-indulgent, self-congratulatory bust. Gawker and Politico, to name but two, easily run rings around them in terms of content, but so do hundreds of thousands of, well for lack of a better word, workaday blogs.

There still is (practically) no "there" there, and it seems that's the point of it. To assemble as large and as previously productive a team of journalists and commentators as possible, to bring along as many of their fans as possible, and to have them all sit around admiring the furnishings, smiling and laughing and telling one another how wonderful they are, recycling stories of past glories, and wondering when the party will start.

Well, it hasn't started yet, that's for sure.

And we must ask why, if "The Intercept" is supposed to be the start of something truly transformational and amazing, it is so very weak and enervated. Almost as if the life had been sucked out of it even before it emerged on the 'Zine scene a little less than two weeks ago.

Was that the point all along? To have a kind of empty vessel, where various media contrarians could be assembled and offered a permanent safe haven to say and do whatever they wanted and get paid for it at whatever the going rate was (or more), and where they could party hardy if they wanted, or just kick back and relax if that was more their inclination, but where they would not be required under any circumstances to do anything they didn't want to, where there would be no schedule, no demands, no production expectations, and no need to... perform?

Is this the transformative media Omidyar and others associated with him in this venture had in mind all along, and are they laughing now that they could so easily bamboozle those awaiting with such breathless anticipation the debut of this Grand New Media Thing?

Well, in a way, pretty much the same thing worked for Obama, didn't it? Gin up a huge body of fans, work them expertly, suggest -- but not really promise -- something new was on the horizon, tell them hope and change was nigh, hold their attention, but either provide nothing at all, or actually take more from the bamboozled than even the flim-flam artists of the Cheney Regime, and call it wonderful?

Is that the model for Omidyar's New Media?

Why not? It works so well in the political realm. Obama neither invented it nor does he do it all that well, though he's better at it than House Cheney has been (viz: Liz's political implosion). It's basic to post modern PR and marketing.

As an experiment, I went back through the archives, my own and at Salon, to explore perspectives on the Citizens United Thing during the hoo-hah over the Supreme Court's ruling overturning a century of campaign finance regulation and permitting unlimited expenditures of luscious cash by corporations in furtherance of 'Free Speech' as guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Recall, Greenwald was out front passionately defending the ruling, while dozens of legal minds took exception to his revanchist -- and in retrospect rather juvenile -- arguments in support of the Supreme Court majority opinion. He simply dismissed the weaker dissents out of hand and he ignored the more trenchant ones altogether, choosing to focus instead on the least informed  or least strenuously agued commentary against the Citizens United decision.

What is striking to me about it today, however, is not Greenwald's casual and dismissive attitude toward the dissent -- he never actually addressed Justice Stevens' well-argued and trenchant dissenting opinion at all -- it is rather his astonishing and surprisingly pre-figuring (again in retrospect) support for unlimited corporate political speech, no matter what the result, because "Teh Constitution."

No matter how cogently and succinctly it was pointed out to him that such a thing is NOT "teh Constitution," and how the SCOTUS majority twisted themselves into knots, and actually ruled on something that was not before them to get to the Citizens United decision, and no matter how often and well it was pointed out how truly malignant this thing was, akin in its own way to Plessy v Ferguson or even Dredd Scott, Greenwald dismissed or ignored the arguments, pressing ahead relentlessly with his ideological position that the Constitution and Bill of Rights required granting full corporate free speech rights and the elimination of campaign finance laws restricting those rights -- because (this is the truly juvenile part) the language of the First Amendment didn't specifically exclude corporate speech, aka: "money," from coverage under the First Amendment.

In other words, his self-declared absolutist and unwavering position was in support of the corporation no matter what the outcome, no matter what the arguments against it, no matter what the legal precedent had long been, and no matter how weak his arguments turned out to be. None of that mattered. What mattered was that corporations have unlimited and unfettered free speech rights based on their wealth and power, and that whatever resulted from their liberation from previous restrictions and legal restraints on them was... just too damn bad. Suck. It. Up.

Corporate rights are to be maximized and if the peasants don't like it, tough. It's constitutional!

Is it any wonder a billionaire might sit up and take notice?

Of course, I don't know that that's when Omidyar's gaze first landed on Greenwald, but it wouldn't surprise me if quite a few billionaires took an interest. The internal dynamic of Greenwald's posts on the matter of Citizens United is fairly obviously directed toward making a pitch for corporate/billionaire support of him and his endeavors. He cannot be dissuaded from his belief that corporate rights and interests are fully supported by the Constitution and that they cannot be restricted in any significant way by something as silly as "law."

This is obviously not a "lefty" position on these matters, and the fact that Greenwald was at the time considered by many to be a significant spokesman for "the left"  -- though he would routinely deny any such label -- his tireless (indeed, tiresome) advocacy on behalf of the Citizens United decision was a distinct outlier in "lefty" circles. His advocacy was strident, bizarre and it was unwavering. It was therefore sure to be noticed in the chambers and halls of money and power -- because it was so contrary to much professional legal opinion and to essentially the entire "leftist" political opinion. Greenwald was seriously out of step. And that can get one noticed.

I suspect he'd been "noticed" well before his strident and contrarian advocacy on behalf of Citizens United, however.

Those of us who noted his sudden appearance on the "progressive" blog scene and followed his meteoric rise from obscurity to "lefty spokesperson" seemingly out of nowhere were more than a little perplexed. It was obvious to many of us from the outset that he was no "lefty;" he was a highly verbose legal observer, one whose political inclinations, to the extent they could be characterized, were essentially reactionary and libertarian -- though he denied and decried such labels.

But then many of those who have been involved in the lefty blogosphere for any length of time recognized long ago that many of the prime movers and shakers in the field were almost all ex-Republicans with a strong libertarian/entrepreneurial bent who felt unwelcome in Republican political circles and who recast themselves as "progressives" -- they weren't really "leftists" in any case.  In that context, Greenwald not only fit right in, he was an almost instant celebrity -- because in addition to everything else, he was out and gay and living abroad with his Brazilian lover.

Wow! Perfect!

He was immediately adopted into the "lefty" blogosphere's A-List and heavily promoted therein. His use of sockpuppets and his frequent vicious attacks on all and sundry who didn't share his opinions or who questioned his perspectives, his honesty, and/or his sometimes reactionary legal and political statements and strategies were largely ignored by his more and more rabid internet supporters, including his backchannel ones.  Absolute submission and conformity of thought was one of the most striking aspects of Greenwald's more and more cult-like followers, many of whom, like he once did, seemed to utilize sockpuppets to bulk up the appearance of support and they were quite proud of it.

Once having secured his position in the "lefty" blogosphere, it seemed there was no mountain he could not climb. His career path seemed extraordinarily smooth as he generated an enormous amount of verbiage in his columns -- not to mention several best selling books denouncing the Bush administration's legal overreach, torture, a dysfunctional political system, the hypocrisy of others, and the routinely disparate "justice" system favoring the interests of the well-off.

He was picked up first by Salon media, then by the Guardian, where he used his ever louder megaphone to "inject" (his word) his contrarian, not infrequently reactionary, ideas and political points of view into liberal and lefty consciousness, and where he built a rabid following of internet fans, most of whom were of a similar libertarian and contrarian persuasion. Few of them showed any interest in or knowledge of actual leftist or even progressive politics, politics which Greenwald himself often denounced or declared irrelevant or an out and out failure.

He made his career denouncing the mainstream media (unless it provided him or those he favored an outlet, or otherwise conformed with his interests, in which case it was "doing its job" --  regardless of his denunciations), denouncing politicians and their hypocrisy, denouncing anyone who disagreed with him, denouncing.... well, you get the picture. He was instrumental in setting up numerous non-profits and political action committees, none of which actually accomplished much beyond raising lots of money. The financial and operational transparency of these outfits was close to opaque, so much so that he was given to lashing out at critics rather than providing the kind of transparency he demanded of others.

And then, once he had secured possession of the Snowden Trove of NSA documents, he (along with Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras and a stellar media staff) plighted his troth with Pierre Omidyar, the founder and chairman of eBay, whose companies are primary beneficiaries and users of NSA and other (inter)national surveillance state data and security.

And, to a not particularly surprising degree, very little -- some would say nothing -- has come from this union of strange bedfellows. So far, it is barren.

Greenwald maintains a presence on Twitter, but for the most part, his infamous Twitter wars with critics and media personalities have pretty much ceased. He has published very little for "The Intercept," though it is substantially more than Laura Poitras has, as she has published absolutely nothing on behalf of the New Media Transformational Enterprise. Jeremy has posted one piece that rehashes old news about cell-phone targeting of militants -- leading to the occasional "oopsie!" by drone pilots and night raiders in America's endless wars.

"The Intercept" itself (often without attribution) maintains an active Twitter and Facebook presence, generally referring to other media stories about "The Intercept" since "The Intercept's" own content is so very sparse. Self regard and congratulations on how awesome it all is, of course, is de rigueur. 

The few others who have posted at "The Intercept" have broken little new ground, but they have managed a good deal of self-regard and congratulation as well. Most of what is there is recycled from other news sources or opinion about what's appeared elsewhere. Gawker or Politico it ain't.

"The Intercept" would be dismissed as nonsense and piffle but for its claim of being "transformational." If that is so, and this is what the transformation of media looks like, then we can only assume we are looking at the extinction of the genre.

If this is the transformational End of media, it's going out with barely a whimper...



--------------------------------------------------------------
Ohhhhhhh! Katie Bar The Door!  Now Pierre has picked up Taibbi! (h/t Pathman in comments, or I wouldn't a noticed it at all) Taibbi!!!!!!™ My doG in Heaven! (*Heavy breathing, heavy breathing, heavy breathing... huff huff huff huff...*) /s

Speaking of The Archives, there was a time, going on a decade ago or so, when I really did consider Taibbi, Greenwald and Scahill to be just about the only major media players with (ahem) balls, and I really did look forward to their patented eviscerations of the PTB. Sy Hersh was fading -- apparently due to knowing too much when you got right down to it. These New Kids on the Block (so to speak) were taking up the cudgel. I cheered them, and I sincerely wish they were still on paths of righteousness.

But too many questions have been raised and left unanswered. The work product at "The Intercept" is weak, and it's still almost non-existent. Pierre's (companies') activities in collaboration with and on behalf of the (Inter)national Surveillance/Security State are incompatible with notions of free inquiry, free press, and free speech. It simply doesn't scan, any more than any billionaire's personal financing of media enterprise does. No matter what your "contract" says, you're not going to have what you think you have -- not if you're honest with yourself and your audience.

When it's boiled down, it's not so much that Pierre is buying up so many of the principal antagonists to at least some of the factions of Power, it's the dishonesty and opacity of this operation. It's the near-silencing of the voices bought by Omidyar.

Greenwald himself was called out directly by Alexa O'Brien for his lies about her contacts with him in regard to joining First Look and her questions about Omidyar and the PayPal 14. Scahill's "Dirty Wars" may get an Oscar, but it's been criticized for its focus on Scahill rather than the real stories of the Dirty Wars being conducted by the United States and its allies.

Poitras is absent from Pierre's stage, as is Segura and Wheeler. What? The Gurlz have nothing to say? Nothing to show? Isn't that something...

And now Taibbi has left Rolling Stone to set up his own little shop under Pierre's wing. Given what's gone on so far, we can be all but certain that he won't be saying much for attribution and publication for the next few months, and if "The Intercept" is the model for what's to come, he won't have much to say after his own operation (under Pierre's wing) is up and running, either, nor will those he cajoles and brings along with him.

Many observers speculated that the point of Pierre's operation was to consolidate, tame and partially silence as many of the loudest media voices speaking out against Power and Money as possible, and so far, that seems to be the case.

Which leads me to speculate that others, witnessing the spectacle, will arise and take up the cause.

But that remains to be seen...

First Look Launches "The Intercept"

Kinda low-key launch, it seems to me, for the Big Reveal of the Greenwald/Poitras/Scahill venture under "Pierre's" wing at First Look Media.

There are two stories and a "welcome" post in this initial effort.

One story consists of nightime pictures of some of the NatSec facilities in the DC area, apparently taken from a rented helicopter by Trevor Paglen. They're kind of pretty, though they primarily show parking lots. Well, yes. That would be right. Even the daytime pictures of NatSec facilities primarily show parking lots. And (believe it or not) you have to have a permit/pass to get into them. The parking lots themselves, which tend to surround the facilities, serve as barriers to access (by those who are unauthorized, dontchaknow). But Paglen doesn't get in to any of that, he just wants to show the pretty pictures, and the pictures are nice, make no mistake. It's good to be able to visualize these places. One place he doesn't show, however, is the CIA headquarters in Langley, VA. Apparently, CIA refused him permission to photograph the facility from his rented helicopter. Luckily, there is no lack of imagery available on the Google.

The other story is about the NSA's provision of targeting information to JSOC and drone operators in various "war" theaters used for liquidating terrorist suspects. Though bylined Greenwald and Scahill, it's obviously mostly Scahill's writing. A bit of it may be Greenwald's, but I doubt very much of it is.

The story is interesting on its merits, but it's got some problems, a major one in my view being its failure to question JSOC's mission -- and the policies of assassination and murder, only the tactics and the reliance on sometimes erroneous intelligence from the NSA. In addition to failing to question JSOC's mission, the story uses terminology which declares targets "terrorists" without questioning that designation. There are some uses of scare quotes from time to time in this very long and detailed article (something like Jeremy might have written for the Nation when time was and which is certainly reminiscent of "Dirty Wars"), which may present the appearance of questioning the standard, official terminology, but in fact, there is never a question about the terminology, only the expression of regret that "mistakes are sometimes made." OK, then.

Finally, I was initially struck by the near absence of any mention of the CIA in this story. They are referred to, but only in passing, early on in the story, as if the CIA is a branch of the military, when in fact, of course, the NSA is the branch of the military which is charged with supplying military intelligence. 

It's long been my understanding that many of the targeted killing/Death From Above program(s) involve the CIA, and more than a few are run independently by the Company itself, but what I got from the initial paragraphs othat CIA involvement in these things is peripheral, and that's just not right.

I have little doubt Jeremy is aware of that fact. But in "Dirty Wars," he claimed that even after being in Iraq for three years, he'd never heard of JSOC, and didn't learn of it until he got to Afghanistan, even though JSOC was carrying out a vicious campaign of terror and murder in Iraq right in front of his disbelieving eyes while he was there. It seemed to me that he was being deliberately disingenuous or deceptive about what he knew and didn't know, as there was no lack of reportage regarding the Death Squads in Iraq (I think some of that reporting came from Jeremy himself) nor was there any lack of reporting naming JSOC as the Valiant American Lead in establishing and carrying out the campaigns of terror and murder that wracked Iraq for years during the American Occupation.

As I got further into the article, however, suddenly the CIA appears (deus ex machina-like) out of nowhere taking over the hunt for al-Awlaki in the Yemen when JSOC fails to find and liquidate him. OK. Prior to that, it seems that the CIA is merely along for the ride provided by the NSA and JSOC. Interestingly, one of the sources for the story, Brandon Bryant, a former drone operator, criticizes the CIA for its "indiscriminate" targeting for liquidation, and he frets that CIA practices are afflicting the NSA and JSOC operations. Good doG in heaven...

There are also a number of stand-alone graphics in the piece which are for the most part not identified as to source or provenance. They appear to be selected quotes from Snowden-trove documents, but who knows...

In the "welcome" article -- rather obviously written by Greenwald, though bylined Greenwald, Poitras and Scahill -- we are treated to a recapitulation of most of the tropes about "accountability and transparency" we've been hearing from Greenwald for years. The initial focus on the NSA is excused as the "short-term" focus; eventually, "The Intercept" will be getting into other matters. Patience, grasshopper.

The article strongly suggests that "The Intercept" is an independent project of Greenwald, Poitras (the Invisible One) and Scahill that is merely being published by First Look Media. The implication is that "The Intercept" pre-dates First Look/Omidyar involvement, and if so, that's interesting, since apparently First Look Media's incorporation pre-dates Snowden's Booz Allen sojourn. (Which led me to speculate that -- perhaps -- Snowden and Omidyar had some connection in Hawaii -- where Omidyar lives and Snowden used to live before the Big HooHah -- prior to Snowden's contact with Poitras and Greenwald. Oh, what tangled webs, wheels within wheels, etc...)

Interesting too is Greenwald's nearly obsessive focus on the "threats" made against him and "journalism" by so many officials.

 Over the past seven months the journalists who have reported on these documents from the National Security Agency have been repeatedly threatened by a wide range of government officials. Sometimes, the intimidation campaign has gone beyond mere threats. These attempted intimidation tactics have intensified in recent weeks and have become clearly more concerted and coordinated.

This is one of his tropes, and it has always struck me as... well, crap. Though "Show Business" is probably more like it. These constantly hyped "threats" have never had any substance behind them. So Mike Rogers is running his mouth. Big. Fucking. Deal. Unlike HUAC and other governmental operations -- both current and historical -- Rogers and Feinstein and so on have no direct power to harm him or "journalism" as a trade and craft. They run their mouths -- it's part of their job.

Just as Greenwald sees it as his crusade to be the modern embodiment of Old Testament Prophets and thunder against them. It's Show Business.

Greenwald also asserts that the principals of "The Intercept" will engage with readers in the comment section, but among the more than 150 comments to the "welcome" post, Greenwald is the only one who does so, and it is only to acknowledge two "long-time" commenters and readers who have arrived to hail the new venture.

Many of the other commenters are clearly writing English as a second language, which is also interesting.

All in all, "The Intercept" strikes me as a surprisingly modest undertaking which may turn into something substantial over time -- or may fizzle out once the thrill of the NSA revelations is gone.

We shall see.
--------------------------------------------
UPDATE: 02/12/14
Froomkin now has a post up at "The Intercept" basically rehashing Jeremy's post and pretty much everything else that's been reported about the Snowden Trove to date. In it, Froomkin, like Scahill, does not question the policies only the tactics involved. Clearly the failure to question the policies of the drone wars and so much else in these initial posts at the "Intercept" is a conscious editorial decision, not a temporary lapse -- as some have tried to claim. On the other hand, given that everything "The Intercept" has so far published is "old news" (or in the case of the nighttime pictures of NatSec facilities, somewhat of a distraction) and there are no documents yet posted at all -- though unlabeled excerpts (from somewhere) are included in Jeremy's post -- it's little wonder some people suspect "The Intercept" is a bad joke. I wouldn't go that far, simply because the startup is as slow as it is, and there is much still to sort out (including clashing egos, I have no doubt.) There's still the question, too, of what kind of influence, if any, "Pierre" has on the venture. To say he has none would be, I think, criminally naive. But how much he may have is an open question. Meanwhile, I had my doubts this thing would launch at all, in part due to those inevitable ego-clashes. So I was wrong about that. Nevertheless, the launch is so low-key as to be practically mute. The "news" is old, the documents are not there, and the feel overall is pretty amateur and clunky.

Given all that, it may be strange to see me say, "It would be nice if it worked." But that's how I feel. I'd rather it didn't fail, but unless something happens to goose it up, I suspect it's not going to amount to very much. A digital hang-out, perhaps, and a blog-home for some writers...
 ------------------------------------------
UPDATE: 02/11/14
Now having looked over the story again -- it is awfully long and in places quite dense -- and after having seen Jeremy's performance on Democracy Now! yesterday, I may be seeing a rationale for Jeremy's reluctance to question (in the "Intercept" story) the policies or the terminologies involved. In fact, as he has many times before, in his Democracy Now! appearance, he did question the policies -- and terminology -- and did so quite forcefully, as has previously been his way. It was rather striking to me that he didn't do so in his inaugural effort for "The Intercept,"  though. Why didn't he? Perhaps because of the function of the site? Is it to attack policies? Or is it to attack players on behalf of opposing factions?

Quite a few people are convinced that the Snowden Leak is a two fold matter: 1) a limited hangout to demonstrate to the public that they are "being watched" by some nefarious agency/agents of government, and they better not get out of line or "the man come and take them away"; 2) a hit by the CIA on the NSA for fucking up and fucking them over.  There is nothing at all in Jeremy's story to refute either notion; in fact, it reinforces both. The message is that your cell phone is a tracking and locating device which the surveillance services can use to locate you and -- if  so ordered -- liquidate you by any means necessary, and that the security services (ie: police, CIA, military, death squads, who knows who else?) will cheerfully carry out your liquidation, even if they are wrong.

Have a nice day.




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Also too: the comment count on Jeremy's drone story went from 37 or something this morning to well over 200 in the space of a couple of hours, after Greenwald's commentariat (and their numerous sock-puppets) arrived en masse. In fact, it was pretty easy to spot the bot-comments and the socks because they all said approximately the same thing (essentially nothing except "Congrats!"). Adding: Later, they got into brawls and arguments with one another, as they tended to do at the Guardian and Salon.

Over at the Guardian they could get the comment count up into the thousands in a day's time.

We'll see whether they are able to do that here.

-------------------------------------------

Further on the comments: the numbers are quickly rising, but the caliber of  commentary has declined precipitously, mostly into the weeds of conspiracy, insults, and complete bullshit. Inevitable, I suppose...