“Emerson Collective, the social impact enterprise founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, is in talks to back BuzzFeed’s news division, Variety has been able to confirm,” Janko Roettgers reports for Variety. “Talks between the two companies are said to be in very preliminary stages, and have not yet reached the stage of high-level business discussions.”
“The talk of a possible investment comes two months after news surfaced that BuzzFeed may have missed its 2017 revenue targets, with sources telling The Wall Street Journal at the time at the company’s revenue for the year may be up to 20% below its $350 million goal,” Roettgers reports. “BuzzFeed was at one point positioning itself for a possible IPO, but that prospect seemed less likely in light of the reported revenue miss, and a general volatile outlook in the media space — all of which could give the idea of a backing by an outside entity more credence.”
“Emerson Collective, which was founded by Jobs in 2004, previously invested in Axios, and acquired the majority of The Atlantic last summer,” Roettgers reports. “Its investment portfolio also includes the podcast startup gimlet media, ‘Mr. Robot’ production company Anonymous Content, and VR studio Within.”
Read more in the full article here.
“BuzzFeed, which split its business into separate news and entertainment units 18 months ago, has won plaudits for its news coverage but was recently hit by a round of lay-offs in London and New York,” Matthew Garrahan and Shannon Bond report for Financial Times. “Its distributed content model, which relies heavily on social media, also has been hit by recent changes to Facebook’s news feed algorithm, which has relegated professionally produced content below pictures and other posts shared by friends and families.”
“In November, BuzzFeed announced a reorganisation aimed at lessening its reliance on native advertising distributed over Facebook and increasing other sources of sales, including ecommerce, videos and licensing,” Garrahan and Bond report. “Ms Powell Jobs, whose net worth is estimated at more than $20bn by Forbes, founded the Emerson Collective in 2004. The philanthropic organisation is focused on education, environmental issues, immigration reform and social justice initiatives but has recently begun to build a roster of media investments.”
“A spin-off or separation of BuzzFeed News would be a new chapter in the evolution of one of the web’s most talked about digital companies. It published in full the controversial dossier on Donald Trump compiled by the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, which contained several unverifiable claims,” Garrahan and Bond report. “Ms Powell Jobs recently told The New York Times Dealbook conference that she believed ‘in the importance of free and unfettered press and media, and its role in our democracy.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: $20 billion can buy a lot of shit.
SEE ALSO:
Laurene Powell Jobs backs ‘Dreamers,’ says ‘hundreds of thousands of young people’s lives are on the line’ – December 8, 2017
Laurene Powell Jobs is buying a big stake in NBA’s Washington Wizards, NHL’s Capitals sports empire – October 3, 2017
Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective buying The Atlantic – July 28, 2017
Bill Simmons: Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has shown ZERO evidence that he knows what he’s doing – August 26, 2015
Steve Balmer stands to gain $1 billion in tax benefits from L.A. Clippers purchase – October 27, 2014
LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer to dump team’s Apple iPads – September 25, 2014
Steve Ballmer officially becomes owner of NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers – August 14, 2014
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to buy Donald Sterling’s Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion – May 29, 2014
Anyone who still calls himself a democrat in these times is devoid of conscience, principle and reason.
You erroneously spelled republican/Tea Party as “democrat”. Your definition of republican was spot on. Now one can easily add Commie Russian sympathizer.
https://twitter.com/TheRealJuIian/status/959495322526298112
You’re quoting a man that would be shot for treason if he were to ever be caught and be returned to the USA. The only people agreeing with this are republicans who are either resigning from congress of supporting Trump.
Anyone who chains himself to the entire platform of either stupid party is a fool. Principle and reason evaporated from political discussion a long time ago while partisan hacks like you shouut down anything that doesn’t align with the propaganda you’ve been fed. You alternately whine and gloat in the era of tit for tat bullshit instead of making any meaningful progress on things that matter, like a balanced budget or spending reductions or long term planning for national infrastructure. Don’t worry, when it all falls down, I’m sure your chinese overlords will give your children menial tasks by which to pay off the accelerating US debt spiral. On the plus side, your brats will live under the single party system you always wanted, Deano.
but Bernie has got it all. Free everything and eventually, I won’t have to work. Unite, resist, revolt for the people! Ya can’t barf on that Beano!
Buzzfeed is the most pathetic, juvenile, extreme hard left, PC, crap organization that has ever existed in the media. Anybody who uses Buzzfeed cannot be taken seriously at anything.
Buzzfeed “broke” the phony Steele Dossier.
f ’em.
Much better than Fox News propaganda!
The FBI has been using this dossier as part of their investigation. If such is so phony then why did the GOP congressional committee looking into collision refuse to release the transcripts of the GPS hearing dossier. It took a Dem to release those 12 hours of testimony.
Your beloved dirty cop, Comey, said it was phony…don’t you believe him?
botvinnik,
“Buzzfeed “broke” the phony Steele Dossier.”
No, the existence of the Dossier had been widely reported and even more widely rumored. All that Buzzfeed did was publish it verbatim.
Those of you who are celebrating the Nunes Memo might want to read it, rather than a press summary. I have. There is no there there.
As a 30-year veteran and former Interim Director of the CIA put it, “The President of the United States today authorized the issuance of a document that his own hand-picked FBI Director has characterized as false.”
Essentially, the Memo (written by Republican staffers solely for Republican committee members) claims that the application for a search warrant should contain not only all the inculpatory material demonstrating probable cause to issue the warrant, but also ALL of the exculpatory evidence (or even opinion) that the defendant might offer at trial.
That isn’t the law. Probable cause is probable cause, with or without defensive material. The issuance of a warrant isn’t a trial where the prosecution has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, so the Brady “exculpatory evidence” rule does not apply. The burden is simply to show sufficient credible evidence to support a finding that there is probable cause to investigate further, and that the requested search or seizure will be required for a thorough investigation.
The Memo does not claim that the Dossier was the only evidence presented to the judge (actually, to four different FISA court judges, all of whom found probable cause). It does assert that the warrants would not have been issued without the Dossier. Others who have read the Affidavit dispute that—including all of the relevant individuals in the justice and intelligence communities. They say there was plenty of corroboration.
You and I cannot know, because the Affidavit itself is Top Secret because it divulges information about confidential government sources and procedures. You and I have only the Nunes Memo, because Mr. Nunes and the White House have refused to declassify Rep. Adam Schiff’s counter-memo refuting Nunes.
The rest of the memo claims that Chris Steele, who compiled the Dossier, cannot be regarded as credible for a variety of reasons:
(1) He was paid by Democrats. To begin with, he was initially paid by Republicans. In the second place, that is hardly dispositive as to whether the former head of the British Secret Service’s Moscow Station can be regarded as credible. People who are doing opposition research aren’t fiction writers. The whole point is to find TRUE negative information that can be used against the opponent and that cannot be refuted. If the information is true, it doesn’t matter who paid for it.
(2) Steele was biased against Mr. Trump. The sole evidence of this is that Steele “was desperate that Donald Trump not be elected” AFTER Steele had discovered evidence that he believed showed that Trump was subject to blackmail by the Russians. As well claim that a detective is biased against a suspect because the officer said the man was guilty after collecting evidence that he robbed a bank.
(3) The Memo treats the Dossier as if it is a polished attack on Donald J. Trump. As anyone who read it on Buzzfeed knows, it is just a more-or-less random collection of raw intelligence. Many of the allegations have been subsequently confirmed, while others have not. The fact that some bits cannot be confirmed does not affect the credibility of the allegations that can be confirmed. Carter Page had been a person of interest to the FBI before Steele ever got involved, and there must be reasons for that. The reasons are in the Affidavit, but not the Memo.
(4) The Memo claims that Steele is unreliable because he contacted the media. There is no discussion of what part of the First Amendment restrained either Steele’s free speech or the press’s right to report it. If he believed that the election of Trump constituted a clear danger to the Western Alliance, he had a moral duty to try and stop it. Whether Steele did or did not talk to the press is simply irrelevant to whether what he was saying was credible.
The last paragraph of the Memo has nothing at all to do with whether a warrant against Page was improper, but takes off at a tangent concerning George Papadopoulos so that it can gratuitously attack Pete Strzok, the FBI agent that we now know was so “anti-Trump” that he wrote the first draft of the FBI Memo about the Anthony Wiener emails that Secretary Clinton blames for her defeat.
So, don’t blame Buzzfeed for reporting the news.
thank you for yet another pointless screed.
…for some reason, I knew you’d reject what is evidence blatant treason.
The Muslim Usurper’s police-state politics will catch up with him at the gallows.
What drugs are you on, Mr. Clark?
I can’t imagine anyone is still reading this thread, but just for completeness:
I wrote the above comment almost immediately after the general public (as opposed to Fox News) could see a copy of the Memo. On two days’ reflection, there is nothing I would correct, but I would add a few points:
(1) As I said, there was not just one FISA warrant issued by one judge in response to one application. It was renewed three times by three other judges (all appointed to the FISA Court by a Republican Chief Justice and mostly named as Article III judges by Republican Presidents and confirmed by Republican Senates). The warrant renewal applications not only had to reestablish probable cause that Carter Page was a foreign agent and needed to be surveilled to protect our national security, but ALSO that the prior warrants had provided useful information. Obviously, the Steele “Dossier” could not contribute to that showing. There must have been additional new evidence in those applications that we will never see because it is classified.
(2) If a bunch of conspirators at the FBI and DOJ wanted to frame the Trump Campaign, why did they pick such an odd target? Carter Page only worked as a Trump advisor briefly, and had left months before the first FISA warrant application. The Nunes Memo suggests that Page—who has been under intermittent investigation as a possible Russian agent since at least 2013—was much closer to Mr. Trump than he actually was. Unless they know something we don’t, of course.
(3) If the Steele Dossier was essentially the sole source for all the allegations against Mr. Trump and his associates, how did the investigation of Mr. Papadopoulos begin months before Steele got involved… as the Memo itself states.
(4) If the conspirators wanted to affect the outcome of the election, why didn’t they say something in public before November 8, 2016? Using a court that operates in complete secrecy seems a peculiar way to proceed, if affecting the election was their goal. They haven’t even gone public with any allegations against Mr. Trump since the election. The FBI and DOJ had nothing to do with the release of the Dossier. All that Mr. Mueller has done in public is obtain two criminal convictions and two additional Federal indictments. That Grand Jury doesn’t seem to think this is all Fake News.
(5) The Memo as a whole reflects partisan desperation, not sound legal reasoning. Why is Mr. Trump trying so desperately to hide something if there is nothing to hide?
Perhaps we should not have dismissed the Dossier or Buzzfeed so quickly. Laurene Powell Jobs may be on to something.
Funny thing is republicans used that same definition for all media except Fox news, World News/Alex Jone, Drudge Report.
Buzzfeed News is “news” in the same way as a ping-pong ball is an ironing board.
Substitute the word Twitter and your statement would ring just as true. But the red team won’t level any criticism against the gossip and lies tweeted out by idiots including fat poorly educated serial liar Faux News addicts who hang out out primarily at their hotels or golf courses in order r to maximize their personal revenue from taxpayers, when they do go to the office they don’t start their workday until 11am because they claim to need “executive time”. To take the effort to verify the truth compared to the endless diversion tactics is too much effort and might require independent thought. Just ask botfuck, the resident neo nazi troll.
Anyway, Steve and Laurene never had any use for republican greedhead scum out to enrich their campaign donors and screw the other 95%.
Another great investment, Laurene. How’d you make your billions? Oh, right.
Same way you became a water boy for the Dick Nixon club.
How? By supporting her husband to create the success that Apple became. She earned every cent and has every right to spend, invest or give away if she so wishes. Contrary to your entitlement weeny viewpoint, you have no such rights.
Similarly, you will be rewarded for your daily FUD efforts.
Oh yes…you’ll get what you deserve
Voters need to remember Democrats did not just spy and attack Trump, they attacked the voting choices of millions of Americans…
MAGA
Voters need to remember that Trump is lining his pockets with short term profits stolen from the next generation taxpayers .
Dear Laurene,
The United States of America is a REPUBLIC, not a democracy, and no amount of your money and purchased and influenced leftist propaganda is ever going to change that fact, you Lib/Dem/Prog ditz.
I pledge allegiance to the Flag,
of the United States of America
and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands,
One Nation, under God
Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.
Sincerely,
A constitutionalist who sees right through you
You gotta be kidding…anyone who reads Buzzfeed is a moron. Too bad Laurene didn’t inherit any class or sense from Steve.
Yet you tune into Google-powered MDN for your daily circle jerk of extreme nationalist propaganda masquerading as a Mac news aggregator and call it news. Pot, meet kettle.
Is it not clear that the Federal Government, in general, needs to have its power curtailed? Is this not clear to you YET? Liberals?
I have never seen a more conspicuously deceptive, dishonest, and deceitful DOJ than the one constructed under the Obama Administration. It continues to be a national disgrace and an affront to the basic tenets of Americanism, i.e. freedom and liberty.
I have grown progressively (no pun intended) more ashamed than ever of the FBI, an agency that I once felt was above the others.
In light of this memo, I have not forgotten how the DOJ was used to bolster claims of racism in Ferguson. I have not forgotten how the DOJ spied on Fox news reporter James Rosen. I have not forgotten how the DOJ spied on the Associated Press. I have not forgotten how Obama’s DOJ hounded young Aaron Swartz to the point where he felt he had no recourse other than suicide to escape them. His crime? Releasing information that was free to anyone online.
Nor have I forgotten the administration’s abuse of the IRS.
Quite frankly, I don’t care about contemporary mindless liberal causes. What concerns me is that liberals condone this. This is the wall that stands between any possible cooperation between left and right in this country as the left is willing to sacrifice all, for their much ballyhooed “equality” even if we all have to be reduced to the level of slaves to the government.
Shame. Shame on you who call yourselves liberal because you are no such thing. You are nothing but angry, jealous, mean-spirited and deeply flawed individuals who wish to make others suffer along with you. You are not the social justice warriors of the 60s. You’re little more than bitchy whiney pathetic American Bolshevicks.
And I have not forgotten how the Tooth Fairy left money under my pillow.
…said the bitchy, whiney, pathetic, retired mid-level government American bolshevik.
So a botvinnik and a bolshevik walk into a bar…
Since we are on the topic of Buzzfeed, DM your results for this Buzzfeed quiz: https://www.buzzfeed.com/atmikapai/which-indian-state-should-you-live-in-3bjgd?utm_term=.nxp26W9MZ#.mma96DZbd #india #BuzzFeed