Reported.ly, an initiative focused on curating global news on social media, will suspend operations Aug. 31.
Carvin
Editor-in-Chief Andy Carvin announced the news Monday, not on reported.ly’s website but his Medium page, underscoring the operation’s deliberate resistance to centralizing content. Funder and employer First Look Media will end support for reported.ly, and the operation’s future beyond Aug. 31 is unknown. Carvin wrote:
The team would love to find a new home for reported.ly, but we recognize the challenges that await us. Over the coming days and weeks, we’re going to explore our options, including re-establishing reported.ly at another news outlet or creating our own independent entity. Either solution would require the necessary funding for our work to continue; otherwise the team will have no choice but to go our separate ways.
Carvin’s announcement brought a show of support on social media and prompted confusion as to why First Look Media is no longer funding reported.ly.
First Look Media continues to be a very confusing company to me. @reportedly was a good thing. https://t.co/SIs7MjkR74
— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) August 8, 2016
Others did some snarky celebrating.
@ArtSartrus That’s because the website was secondary at best. Our community is on social, so that’s where we interact with people.
— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) August 8, 2016
In a statement, First Look Media said it incubates new ideas to support investigative journalism, independent voices, and free expression, and has been honored to do exactly that with reported.ly. “While reported.ly proved to be an award-winning and critically acclaimed service, we’ve refined our long-term business strategy and are focusing our journalism investments in other endeavors, including The Intercept and Field of Vision.”
Carvin drew attention from the media sphere in 2011 while at NPR, when he became a one-man newsroom covering the Arab Spring. He doggedly monitored Twitter feeds of hundreds of journalists, activists and others, vetting and sourcing the information from his NPR cubicle.
“It’s not that I’m just using Twitter and integrating other forms of journalism,” Carvin said in 2012. “It’s that I see Twitter as the newsroom where I spend my time.”
Carvin launched reported.ly in December 2014 as a social media newsroom with a far-flung network of social media reporters sifting through streams to provide real-time updates.
Might there already be a potential new home for reported.ly?
@acarvin let’s talk
— Joaquin Alvarado (@joaquinalvarado) August 8, 2016