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Ozy Media, the digital media firm that got here below scrutiny for its enterprise practices in latest days, introduced on Friday that it was shutting down.
“At Ozy, we’ve got been blessed with a exceptional crew of devoted employees,” the corporate’s board of administrators mentioned in an announcement. “A lot of them are world-class journalists and skilled professionals to whom we owe super gratitude and who’re fantastic colleagues. It’s due to this fact with the heaviest of hearts that we should announce at the moment that we’re closing Ozy’s doorways.”
The corporate, led by the previous MSNBC anchor Carlos Watson, was based in 2013. It attracted high-profile traders together with Emerson Collective, the group run by Laurene Powell Jobs, and Marc Lasry, a hedge fund supervisor and the co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball franchise.
In an announcement final week, Emerson Collective distanced itself from Ozy, saying that it “didn’t take part in Ozy’s newest funding spherical and has not served on its board since 2019.” On Thursday, Mr. Lasry resigned because the chairman of the Ozy board.
The announcement of the shutdown got here 5 days after The New York Instances printed an article that raised questions in regards to the firm, together with detailing an episode by which a high government at Ozy appeared to have impersonated a YouTube government throughout a convention name with Goldman Sachs bankers whereas the corporate was making an attempt to lift $40 million.
Ozy’s success depended to a point on the efficiency of the corporate’s movies on YouTube. On the convention name, the impersonator advised the Goldman Sachs crew that Ozy was an excellent success on the platform.
After the decision, Google, the proprietor of YouTube, alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and Goldman Sachs acquired an inquiry from federal regulation enforcement officers, in response to three folks with data of the matter. The F.B.I.’s San Francisco subject workplace wouldn’t verify or deny the existence of an investigation.
The board mentioned on Tuesday that it had employed Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, a big worldwide agency with headquarters in New York, to conduct a overview of Ozy’s enterprise actions. The board additionally mentioned it had requested Samir Rao, the chief working officer of Ozy and the one who apparently impersonated the YouTube government, “to take a go away of absence pending the outcomes of the investigation.”
After the article was printed, Ozy misplaced considered one of its greatest stars, when the previous BBC anchor Katty Kay, who had joined the corporate earlier this yr after practically three many years on the British broadcaster, introduced that she had resigned. Ms. Kay wrote on Twitter that she had handed in her resignation on Tuesday morning, including that “the allegations in The New York Instances, which caught me abruptly, are severe and deeply troubling and I had no selection however to finish my relationship with the corporate.”
On Thursday, The Instances printed one other report that, final yr, Ozy employed a crew to make a chat present for the cable community A&E — “The Carlos Watson Present,” hosted by Mr. Watson. Company had been advised the present would air on A&E, and the present’s government producer was advised it might premiere in August 2020 in prime time.
The issue: A&E mentioned there was no such deal. The manager producer resigned after discovering out, writing to Ozy’s leaders: “You’re taking part in a harmful recreation with the reality. The implications of providing an A&E present to friends once we don’t have one to supply are catastrophic for Ozy and for me.”
When the chief producer, Brad Bessey, resigned, he advised the present’s employees that this system was not, the truth is, going to be proven on A&E. Mr. Watson then advised the folks on the Zoom name that “The Carlos Watson Present” would ultimately wind up on A&E, in response to Mr. Bessey and one different particular person on the decision. Till that point, Mr. Watson added, the present would seem on YouTube as a part of its YouTube Originals, a slate of programming made by skilled studios and paid for by YouTube.
“The Carlos Watson Present” ended up showing on Ozy.com and on YouTube, though not as a YouTube Unique. A YouTube official confirmed that the present was not a YouTube Unique. Mr. Watson and an Ozy spokesperson didn’t reply to requests for remark.
It is a growing story. Examine again for updates.
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Supply- nytimes