First Look Media, the company started by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar with former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, has hired former EntertainmentWeekly.com Editor Bill Gannon.
Gannon previously oversaw the front page of Yahoo.com and later served as director of digital media at Lucasfilm. He is the first major hire by First Look since Omidyar announced the formation of the business as well as a $50 million investment.
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Omidyar announced the news in ablog post that detailed Gannon's task of building the editorial side of First Look.
"Bill will assemble a specialized team to create a unique, digital approach to breaking news – from politics and business to sports and entertainment," Omidyar wrote.
Gannon told Mashable that the chance to help create a media outlet from the ground up, along with the support Omidyar has provided, attracted him to the role.
"It was really just an opportunity to do what I love to do, which is create something new and meaningful," he said. "It's an opportunity to do that with a great technologist like Pierre [Omidyar], to find someone who wants to protect journalism from the financial and other pressures that are on journalism right now."
Technology will play an important role in First Look's efforts to build a diverse media organization that also features investigative reporters Lilian Segura, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras, Gannon said.
"If we're able to create this new technology platform that uses social and is able to leverage these great individual journalists, and we're able to package that up with a broader spectrum of journalism that will attract the broadest audience possible... imagine what that opportunity now looks like," he said.
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