Taibbi Returns To Rolling Stone With Piece That Was ‘Supposed To Launch’ New Site

Journalist Matt Taibbi arrives at the "Huffington Post 2010 Game Changers Event", Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010, in New York. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)
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With a meaty profile on a former securities lawyer for JPMorgan Chase, journalist Matt Taibbi marked his return to the magazine that employed him for more than 15 years.

Taibbi’s piece Thursday in Rolling Stone on Alayne Fleischmann, the lawyer who blew the whistle on mortgage fraud at the financial institution, came only a week after he parted ways with First Look Media, the startup launched last year by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

After becoming a star at Rolling Stone, Taibbi joined First Look in February to lead a digital magazine at the company that was going to be called Racket. But Taibbi’s seven months at First Look were stormy, and ended amid ongoing tension with higher-ups.

It didn’t take long for him to land on his feet. Days after Taibbi’s departure from First Look, a spokesperson for Rolling Stone confirmed that he was set to return to the magazine with a “big piece.”

According to Elle Reeve, Taibbi’s former colleague at First Look, that “big piece” — a nearly 6,000-word story on Fleischmann — had originally been reserved for Racket’s launch.

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