A few hours after the news broke that journalist Glenn Greenwald would leave The Guardian to launch his own media venture, Reuters reported Pierre Omidyar, a philanthropic billionaire who cofounded eBay, would fund Greenwald's new project.
While Greenwald's reporting on top-secret NSA surveillance programs has earned him bylines with news outlets all over the world, Omidyar is relatively unknown.
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Hawaii-based Omidyar, 46, became a billionaire in 1998 when eBay went public. His net worth, according to Forbes, is more than $8 billion, and he still owns 9.3% of the company. After cashing in, he founded the Omidyar Network in 2004, a philanthropic investment firm.
But Omidyar's interests go beyond philanthropy, and this latest venture with Greenwald won't be his first dip into the news world. In fact, according to associates and media observers Mashable interviewed, his background in both technology and media could make him a perfect fit for shaking up the industry.
"Given how effective he was at creating a whole new definition of retail with eBay, as somebody who's in the media space, I'm interested to see what innovations he will come up with in this space, which I think will benefit all of us," said Arianna Huffington, who worked with Omidyar on HuffPost Hawaii.
Omidyar's latest project will be his second foray in the media business. In 2008, he founded Peer News, a media company focused on civic-minded local journalism. Two years later, Peer News launched the Honolulu Civil Beat, a website with no ads but with a hard paywall. At its launch readers had to pay $19.99 per month to access all its content, but subscriptions were lowered to $9.99 a month in 2011. The site then introduced a metered paywall that allowed readers to access a certain number of articles for free before subscribing.
John Temple, founding editor of the Honolulu Civil Beat, said Omidyar has "a real passion for journalism" and was "deeply involved" in managing the website and its journalists. On its launch day in 2010, Temple recalls how Omidyar stayed in the office working past midnight, and he was there "every day" after.
While it's unclear how the site does financially, it has had some journalistic success. With a staff of six reporters and three editors, Honolulu Civil Beat has won three Society of Professional Journalism awards for the best news website in Hawaii.
"Pierre is a builder, he is an innovator," said Temple, who is now a senior fellow with the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships Program at Stanford University. "I think he could shakes things up and contribute to the reinvention and improvement of American journalism."
Despite Omidyar's local success, he's had more ambitious goals for awhile.
In a conversation with New York University's professor and media commentator Jay Rosen, he revealed that he was among the investors interested in buying The Washington Post, which inspired him to launch his own, independent, news website.
"I developed an interest in supporting independent journalists in a way that leverages their work to the greatest extent possible, all in support of the public interest," Omidyar wrote in a press release. "And, I want to find ways to convert mainstream readers into engaged citizens. I think there’s more that can be done in this space, and I’m eager to explore the possibilities."
For Dan Gillmor, director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University, an ambitious media organization led by Omidyar is on the money.
"I can't think of anyone who's likely to be better for the emerging journalism ecosystem than Pierre," Gillmor told Mashable via email. "He's passionate about media and social justice, and that's been a rare combination at the highest levels of traditional media companies."
Moreover, Huffington, whose joint venture with Omidyar launched in late May, believes that his passion will be vital in attracting — and winning over — a new audience.
"He's going to be personally very involved," she said. "He will be fully engaged with all his knowledge both of new technologies that he wants to bring in, helping get readers more engaged."
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