Ozy Media faces fierce criticism after New York Times exposure: what an obvious scam

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Ozy Media came under criticism on Monday, with criticism bleeding Tuesday, after a New York Times column accused the company of inflating its website and video numbers.

“The memo from Ozy CEO to staff, dating from around 12 hours, received very little social media attention … which sort of underscores the point of @benyt’s column, that Ozy is a mirage of a media company, “tweeted CNN’s Brian Stelter, including the statement from CEO Carlos Watson who called the column a” hitjob. “

Hamilton Nolan, who is the Columbia Journalism Review’s public editor for the Washington Post, added, “Journalism is an area where people who are good at writing and reporting are paid $ 60,000 to produce information. and “media” is an area where good-for-nothing people are paid a million dollars to make the rich lose money.

He linked to the Times article, which revealed details of a phone call with Goldman Sachs investors in which Ozy co-founder Samir Rao claimed to be a Google executive. Watson said Rao was having a mental health crisis and the coverage of it is not kind.

Krystal Ball, who like Watson was once a presenter on MSNBC, said, “It’s amazing what an obvious scam Ozy is. Look at the stats for this YouTube video. 90,000 views but only 12 likes and one comment in which someone points out how this is an obvious scam.

Watson spoke to TheWrap on Monday and, in addition to defending Rao and calling the Times article “an ad hominem bomb attack”, took issue with Ozy overestimating his numbers on the web and video feed. . He said the company’s revenue reached $ 50 million last year and came mostly from non-web properties, including newsletters, podcasts, TV shows, and Facebook and YouTube feeds. Live festivals, another important source of income for the company, have been halted during COVID.

Among Ozy’s criticisms on Monday and Tuesday were many who questioned the scope of the company. A few pointed out that they had never seen Ozy content shared organically.

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