NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--First Look Media, the news organization created by Pierre Omidyar, today announced that acclaimed journalist and New York Times best-selling author Matt Taibbi will launch First Look’s second digital magazine. Taibbi will help assemble a top-notch team of journalists and bring his trademark combination of reporting, analysis, humor and outrage to the ongoing financial crisis – and to the political machinery that makes it possible. The magazine will launch later this year.
Taibbi comes to First Look from Rolling Stone, where he served as a contributing editor for the past 10 years. During his tenure, he built a large and devoted following that has grown to rely on his in-depth and irreverent reporting on Wall Street and Washington. Whether busting Goldman Sachs for market manipulation or revealing the hidden roots of the student loan crisis, Taibbi has exposed and explained the most complicated financial scandals of the day with a fresh and compelling approach to journalism that has enraged and inspired millions of readers.
“Matt is one of the most influential journalists of our time,” said Eric Bates, executive editor of First Look Media. “His incisive explorations of the financial crisis – and Wall Street’s undue influence over our political system – have played a key role in helping to inform the public and transform the national debate. He is a journalist who can explain what a credit default swap is and why it’s important – and, make you bust out laughing while he’s doing it. I look forward to having him on our team and helping him launch a dynamic new site unlike any other.”
While at Rolling Stone, Taibbi won a National Magazine Award for his reporting on the 2008 presidential election, and was a finalist for his coverage of Occupy Wall Street. The author of two New York Times bestsellers, he earlier worked as reporter for the Moscow Times, an English-language expatriate newspaper, and co-founded The eXile, a bi-weekly newspaper based in Moscow. The paper became infamous for its satirical wit, as well as for hard-nosed reporting of corruption in both the Russian government and the American aid community. The paper was the only publication to correctly predict the 1998 Russian financial crisis.
“This is an incredible opportunity and a wonderful creative challenge,” said Taibbi. “I’m looking forward to helping build a team that produces hard-hitting coverage of politics and the economy, but delivers it in a way that’s fun, funny, and accessible. It’s a new golden age for reporting and it’s a real privilege to be part of this effort to create something innovative and lasting.”
Taibbi will be based in New York City. The name and launch date of his digital magazine will be announced in the coming months. First Look Media’s first online publication, The Intercept, led by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill, launched on February 10.
About First Look Media
First Look Media seeks to reimagine journalism for the digital age, combining the promise of technological innovation with the power of fearless reporting. Founded by Pierre Omidyar, the organization will pursue original, independent journalism that is deeply reported and researched, thoroughly fact checked, and beautifully told. We are driven above all by a belief that democracy depends on a citizenry that is not just highly informed, but deeply engaged. In all our work, we are committed to strict standards of accuracy and honesty, a willingness to report our own errors and inconsistencies, and a deep respect for the transformative power of true stories. To learn more, visit www.firstlook.org.