On Friday, one Mark Ames posted a story on PandoDaily in which he investigated Pierre Omidyar’s contributions to Ukraine revolutionary groups. Omidyar, the founder of eBay, is bankrolling the much-talked-about First Look Media. What does this say about First Look? Not much, says Glenn Greenwald, one of First Look’s top editors. Greenwald responded that the activities of the Omidyar Network “have no effect whatsoever on my journalism or the journalism of The Intercept. That’s because we are guaranteed full editorial freedom and journalistic independence.”
The New Yorker takes a look at a 1979 novel that foresaw the Russian invasion of Crimea.
Carl Phillips has chosen Ansel Elkins as the winner of the 2014 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. Yale University Press will publish Elkins’s book, Blue Yodel, in April 2015.
In a long interview with the Times, Philip Roth says that he’s enjoying his retirement (sort of): “The horror of being caged has lost its thrill. It is now truly a great relief, something close to a sublime experience, to have nothing more to worry about than death.”
Tomorrow, the NYPL will begin this season’s “Books at Noon” series at the 42nd street library, where PJ O’Rourke will give a lunchtime talk about his work. Future writers include Joyce Carol Oates, Colm Toibin, and Michael Cunningham. The Paris Review has interviewed a TV writer for the first time (Mad Men’s Matthew Weiner) in their “Art of Screenwriting” feature. Also in the Spring issue, a new Zadie Smith story, and a Francesca Woodman portfolio.