O'Keefe pioneering new path for investigative reporters
Just three weeks after Project Veritas board members took advantage of government rules to take down its founder, as detailed by Frontline News, James O'Keefe is back and appears to have prepped for modern day journalism warfare. Uninterested in a spending another decade and a half building up a non-profit group while fearing being ousted at any moment by board members who are not allowed to be too closely aligned with the founder, O'Keefe appears to have forgone the benefits of non-profit status.
A lack of non-profit status means that donations would not be tax deductible, with the implication that most if not all potential donors will likely give their larger donations elsewhere. In light of that, his business model appears to be subscription based instead of accepting donations.
O'Keefe may also be trying to cut down on costs by engaging an army of volunteers in lieu of hiring more than a core group of journalists. He is asking for contributions of time and energy from an “army” of investigators. The fruits of those investigations would then be vetted for accuracy and privacy concerns by a small group of professional journalists with O'Keefe's new organization, O’Keefe Media Group (OMG).
In a tweet accompanying a video announcing his new path, O'Keefe explains that the forces who took him down, whom he describes in the video as the pharma giants, the 3-letter government agencies and even those he thought he could trust, "have awakened a sleeping giant!"
O'Keefe specifically included his own name in the new organization's name as an additional protection against a new ouster.
I've already had one company stolen from me, so it's more difficult when your name is in it."
O'Keefe added that he wants people to think of the group's acronym, OMG, when watching their videos exposing corruption because they should be thinking, “Oh My Gosh, that's outrageous … it's righteous indignation."
Filtering his new idea down to one short phrase, O'Keefe chose, “Uber for citizen journalism," which he describes as a way to “decentralize journalism.”
Visualizing the idea, O'Keefe retweeted an image purporting to show the history of journalism, with journalists originally investigating government officials and businesses, but then switching to telling the populace how to think, leading to a backlash in which the masses themselves do real journalism.
