From First Look Media's billionaire founder Pierre Omidyar, an "Important Announcement"--of garbled nothingness:
I regret to announce that after several weeks of discussions, Matt Taibbi has left First Look. We wish him well. Our differences were never about editorial independence. We have never wavered from our pledge that journalistic content is for the journalists to decide, period.
The brief press release goes on, but there is no mention as to what the "differences" were.
NYMag.com has more, which, while still vague, is rather suggestive:
Omidyar originally conceived of First Look as a network of interlinking sites run by "independent" journalists.... Over the last year, however, the center of gravity of the organization has shifted, as Omidyar and his Silicon Valley braintrust have exerted control over budgets and vacillated over the journalistic mission.... The confrontational approach that made Taibbi's name at Rolling Stone ... appears to have contributed to internal trouble at First Look.
"Vacillated over the journalistic mission." Perhaps Omidyar's "period" should have come with a question mark? That, anyway, will be the widespread assumption out there, since Omidyar's classic corporate gobbledygook failed to elucidate a damn thing.