Another rat flees the sinking ship of First Look Media
Last edited Thu Nov 13, 2014, 10:59 PM - Edit history (2)
John Cook, the editor in chief of The Intercept, the newsmagazine started by the billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, will leave his position to return to his previous employer, Gawker Media, where he will oversee investigations.
Mr. Cook’s departure is the latest in a series of setbacks for Mr. Omidyar and the media company, First Look Media, that he pledged $250 million to start about a year ago. It was confirmed Thursday in a post on The Intercept, and by Gawker Media’s founder, Nick Denton, after first being reported by Sarah Ellison of Vanity Fair.
Mr. Cook will be deputy editor of investigations, a new role spanning Gawker Media’s eight titles, which include Jezebel and Gizmodo, Mr. Denton said in an interview Thursday. He will do “what he did best on Gawker — great big scoops — but across the eight sites,” Mr. Denton said.
First Look Media started with prominent hires like Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, two of the reporters who had received classified documents from the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden, and Matt Taibbi, noted for his reporting on Wall Street for Rolling Stone magazine.
Mr. Taibbi, who was to have started a separate site called Racket, acrimoniously left the company last month. The turmoil was detailed in a long piece of self-reporting the company published, laying bare a clash between corporate staff members and journalists.
Mr. Cook was one of the story’s authors, and wrote that The Intercept, the site he ran with Mr. Greenwald and Ms. Poitras, had found its feet despite those difficulties. That conclusion seemed in peril Thursday, though in a post on The Intercept, Mr. Greenwald said that the site was seeking a replacement for Mr. Cook and would continue to grow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/business/media/john-cook-leaving-the-intercept-to-return-to-gawker.html?_r=0
And yes DUers, this is the same John Cook who just two weeks ago was telling us that everything was hunky-dory...
Fun Fact: The Intercept and Gawker Media offices share the same building, so all Cook is doing is changing floors...
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And 
Sid
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