Matt Taibbi Left First Look Media After Female Staffer’s Complaint

[Ykcutnek]

Omidyar hired Taibbi in February to establish and staff a digital magazine alongside The Intercept that would cover finance and politics. The project was far enough along to have a name—Racket—and a rough launch date of sometime this fall. From the beginning, his First Look colleagues say, Taibbi frequently clashed with upper management and openly resented the company’s byzantine internal politics, under which Omidyar himself was charged with authorizing itemized expense reports.

These tensions exploded earlier this month, after a female staffer leveled a complaint against Taibbi for his behavior:

These simmering problems came to a head this month when a Racket staffer complained to senior management that Taibbi had been verbally abusive and unprofessionally hostile, and that she felt the conduct may have been motivated, at least in part, by her gender. [First Look President John] Temple conducted an investigation, and First Look determined that while none of the alleged conduct rose to the level of legal liability, the grievance bolstered their case that Taibbi should not be the manager of Racket.

http://gawker.com/matt-taibbi-left-first-look-media-after-female-staffer-1652961860

[Scuba]

1. So all those things he reported on bankster crimes must not be true, eh?

[Ykcutnek]

2. Nope, regardless of his character...

Wall Street is still a vampire squid sucking the life out of everyone.

[Scuba]

3. So why post this smear job?

[arcane1]

6. Sounds like a "my way or the highway" operation and Matt didn't fit in well with that.

More power to him!

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. Well...that kind of blows up the anti-Greenwald, anti-Omidyar narrative on this.

Back to the drawing board for the haters.

[Yavin4]

5. Another example of how being good at one thing, does not make you good at something else.

If someone is really good at one thing, that does not qualify them to be managers. Managing people is a skill unto itself.

[SunSeeker]

7. So fucking true.

Just because you're a great, truth - telling journalist (and maybe because of that penchant for brutal candor) it does not necessarily make you a great manager of journalists. People skills require diplomatic finesse, adjusting to people's individual idiosyncrasies and biting one's tongue. I just can't picture Taibbi biting his tongue about anything.

It's the same reason great athletes don't necessarily make great coaches.

[Luminous Animal]

8. Hmmm...

Statement from Racket (Matt's publication at First Look) executive editor Alex Pareene:

Working with Matt Taibbi was one of the best experiences of my career and I’d be thrilled to have the opportunity to do so again. From my perspective, the management of First Look Media repeatedly took incidents that should’ve been minor hiccups of the sort experienced at any media company or startup and, through incompetence, escalated them into full-blown crises. Having worked closely with Matt since he hired me, I witnessed no behavior on his part that I would characterize as “abusive,” and his hostility was reserved for his superiors, not his subordinates. He certainly was no more “combative” than any number of other editors I’ve worked with, including Intercept editor-in-chief John Cook. I also categorically reject the allegation that there was a gendered component to his managerial issues. We were successfully working to address those issues when First Look once again stepped in to fuck things up. I regret that the world won’t get a chance to see Matt Taibbi’s Racket.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/30/inside-story-matt-taibbis-departure-first-look-media/

[Cha]

9. "Racket".. how ironic of them.