DailyDirt: Journalism 2.0 Owned By Billionaires?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It isn't exactly news that newspapers are facing some serious business difficulties. But if you haven't been keeping up with the business of journalism (and who could blame you since most of the news is crap), you might have missed seeing that some tech billionaires are starting to invest in journalistic endeavors. Sure, billionaires have always owned all the major news organizations (eg. Hearst, Bloomberg, Zuckerman), but the key part here is that technology-savvy billionaires are getting into the game. Maybe that small detail will matter. Or Maybe it won't. In case you haven't been reading any of this news, here are some examples of this billionaire buying trend.

• Pierre Omidyar is the latest billionaire to invest in a journalistic enterprise and create a new kind of sustainable journalism. Omidyar was considering buying the Washington Post, but he decided to start from scratch, so he'll find out whether his millions would have been better spent on an existing news organization. [url]
• Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250 million, and everyone will be watching the natural experiment of how the Washington Post evolves, compared to Omidyar's new media startup. Will any Washington Post journalists cover this story? [url]
• Chris Hughes bought The New Republic last year, and he wasn't the first billionaire to buy a media outlet -- but he might be one of the youngest. TNR has re-designed its layout, and Hughes thinks editorial decisions can't be isolated from the business side of his magazine. Hughes aims to make the company profitable in the next few years.... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: billionaires, chris hughes, jeff bezos, journalism, media trends, news, pierre omidyar
Companies: the new republic, washington post