Reality sets in for journalists at publications with tech-driven owners

It was announced Thursday that the New Republic, the legendary liberal thought magazine, was shaking up its operation. The top two editors were unexpectedly ousted inspiring scores of their loyal colleagues to resign from the magazine in protest.

Departing staffers reportedly worried that the magazine was turning away from its traditional long-form, in-depth journalism to be more like the entertainment site BuzzFeed.

It was just two years ago that the New Republic was purchased by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, to great fanfare. Back then, Hughes told the New York Times that his plan was to “expand the amount of rigorous reporting and solid analysis” for which the magazine is known.

The magazine celebrated the opening of its new Washington, D.C., office space with a party, where Franklin Foer, one of the since-ousted editors, was in good spirits, saying it’s “very sweet to be in a place that is our home and will be our home for a long time.”

But things began to change in September. A manager from Yahoo! News was hired by TNR to bring a “new focus and commitment to digital platforms.” Hughes was quoted in the New York Times two months later saying that, “Today, I don’t call [TNR] a magazine at all. I think we’re a digital media company.”

That prompted senior editor John Judis to tell the Daily Beast that he “liked the old New Republic. I thought it had a really important role to play in America and I’m sorry if it’s no longer going to play that role.”

All this comes just weeks after First Look Media suffered similar setbacks. Like the New Republic, FLM is owned by a billionaire technology entrepreneur, Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay.

Omidyar started the site in February after recruiting Glenn Greenwald, the journalist responsible for publishing Edward Snowden’s trove of cyber-pilfered NSA documents, and other high-profile journalists. The main goal was to support independent, investigative journalism on topics like politics, national security and finance.

FLM also brought on well-known journalist Matt Taibbi to head up a team of finance reporters under a subsection of FLM called the “Racket.” But, before the Racket ever materialized, Taibbi left FLM on an acrimonious note.

“Taibbi’s dispute with his bosses … centered on differences in management style and the extent to which First Look would influence the organizational and corporate aspects of his role as editor-in-chief,” wrote Greenwald and other FLM editors in an explanatory blog post.

“Those conflicts were rooted in a larger and more fundamental culture clash that has plagued the project from the start: A collision between the First Look executives, who by and large come from a highly structured Silicon Valley corporate environment, and the fiercely independent journalists who view corporate cultures and management-speak with disdain.”

A new Vanity Fair profile of FLM revealed that editors had to use a cumbersome organizational and scheduling computer program called Asana throughout the work day. One of the editors jokingly referred to it as “up your Asana.”

Another editor, Matt Cook, left FLM days after Taibbi. He had only been with the operation for eight months.

For both TNR and FLM, the well-heeled owners were seen as godsends. The journalism industry has suffered a brutal financial decline in recent years, so having someone with a seemingly endless stream of cash and an apparent passion for quality journalism can be irresistible. It’s apparently not so simple.

The Washington Post may be an exception. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, yet another billionaire technology entrepreneur, purchased the publication in 2013. He said he wanted to provide financial runway for the struggling paper and and recently said he wants to see it become a “global publication.” And an inside source at the Post tells the Washington Examiner that the new owner is “pretty hands-off” in terms of managing the newsroom.

The full impact of the Bezos acquisition remains to be seen.