EBay Inc founder Pierre Omidyar on Wednesday said he is building an independent media organization covering news from sports to politics for mainstream readers, spearheaded by big names including ex-Guardian correspondent Glenn Greenwald.
Omidyar, the 46-year-old French-born Iranian-American who remains chairman of the e-commerce giant he founded, wrote in a blog post that he considered buying the Washington Post - which Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos eventually snapped up - but decided he wanted to build a news organization from the ground up.
"Right now, I'm in the very early stages of creating a new mass media organization. I don't yet know how or when it will be rolled out, or what it will look like," he wrote.
"I developed an interest in supporting independent journalists in a way that leverages their work to the greatest extent possible, all in support of the public interest. And, I want to find ways to convert mainstream readers into engaged citizens. I think there's more that can be done in this space, and I'm eager to explore the possibilities."
Forbes lists Omidyar's net worth at $8.5 billion.
Omidyar has also funded the Democracy Fund, which if I didn't know it was funded by Omidyar, I would have guessed it was a CIA-funded NGO, after looking at the web site.
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