Michael Bloom Named First Look Media President Amid Staff Exodus

“Michael brings years of experience in technology, entertainment, media and journalism that spans both coasts,” CEO Pierre Omidyar says

First Look Media is aiming for a bit of a restart after a staff exodus, and has hired digital media veteran Michael Bloom as President and General Manager, CEO Pierre Omidyar announced Wednesday.

Bloom, who’s served as Chief Digital Officer for Rolling Stone and Us Weekly; CEO of Guardian News and Media; EVP of Dr. Oz Digital; Senior VP of MTV Digital, will be charged with running the journalistic aspect of FL along with developing commercial opportunities.

“Michael brings years of experience in technology, entertainment, media and journalism that spans both coasts,” Omidyar said in a statement. “He’s passionate about working with journalists, technologists and marketers to develop products that bring First Look Media’s current and future independent voices to more and more people.”

He also mentioned the negative publicity surrounding the company: “Michael joins First Look Media barely a year after the launch of its first publication, The Intercept. In that time, there’s been no shortage of write-ups about the company and its inner workings. But less has been written about the important work The Intercept has published.”

First Look has been plagued by high profile hires bolting out the door, in several cases in less than a year. Rolling Stone contributor Matt Taibbi departed after just eight months for reportedly having to deal with chronic meddling and delays by Omidyar and management on things ranging from hiring to seating charts to budgets.

Staff for “The Racket” — the never-launched digital magazine set to be a mix of hard reporting and edgy satire — was fired soon after Taibbi’s exit because FL couldn’t figure out a way to continue the project without his leadership. Nine staffers were laid off around the Thanksgiving holiday.

Taibbi hasn’t gone in-depth about his exit — most likely due to contractual restraints — but in the few things he’s said, the impression was clear: Omidyar’s talk about independent, ferocious journalism was not executable due to layers and layers of corporate bureaucracy and over-management.

Soon after Taibbi’s exit, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief John Cook, left the company after only eight months, returning to his previous employer Gawker. Like Taibbi, Cook hasn’t said much, but a tweet penned by him after Taibbi’s exit seems to indicate he found fault on the side of management.

“What has happened is bad and dumb and needless and not Matt Taibbi’s fault,” Cook tweeted on October 29th, 2014.

And the most recent departure has been the most buzzworthy of all. Former Intercept investigative reporter Ken Silverstein, who was thrust into a revolving door from The Intercept to The Racket and back to The Intercept when The Racket was disbanded — quit and didn’t hold back about the “epic managerial incompetence” steeped deep into First Look.

“I am one of a many employees who was hired under what were essentially false pretenses,” former investigative reporter Ken Silverstein wrote in a series of Facebook posts following his resignation in February.

Silverstein went on to write a piece for Politico, detailing the layers and layers of corporate managers reporters had to deal with, and the subsequent delays on stories.

Bloom’s hire will definitely revolve around streamlining editorial and repairing an image of a media startup in disarray.

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