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The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who broke the US spying scandal story, said he was censored for an article critical of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald said on Thursday he had resigned from The Intercept after the US investigative media outlet purportedly refused to publish his article critical of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Greenwald, one of the first journalists to report on the Edward Snowden documents on 2013 US mass surveillance scandal, said he was leaving the website he started in 2014 with two other journalists.
“The final, precipitating cause is that The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden,” Greenwald said in a Substack blog post.
My Resignation From The Intercept
The same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the national press generally have engulfed the media outlet I co-founded, culminating in censorship of my own articles.https://t.co/dZrlYGfEBf
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 29, 2020
Greenwald’s article accuses news outlets of pro-Biden bias in their standoffish coverage of corruption allegations against the former vice president’s son in a recent New York Post story.
The Post accused Hunter Biden of monetising access to his father in improper business dealings in Ukraine.
Twitter restricted the article’s spread amid questions over the “origins of the materials” on which it relied, including emails apparently sourced from a laptop left by Hunter Biden at a Delaware repair shop last year.
Facebook also restricted users ability on the link to the article, saying – along with several US news outlets – that there were questions over its veracity.
Greenwald, 53, left The Guardian in 2013 to set up The Intercept with the founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar.
He accused it of the “same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the national press”.
In response, The Intercept hit back at the Brazil-based journalist, calling him “a grown person throwing a tantrum”, and said it was he who had allowed his standards to drop.
“We have the greatest respect for the journalist Glenn Greenwald used to be, and we remain proud of much of the work we did with him over the past six years. It is Glenn who has strayed from his original journalistic roots, not The Intercept,” a statement from the website read.
Glenn Greenwald’s decision to resign from The Intercept stems from a fundamental disagreement over the role of editors in the production of journalism and the nature of censorship. https://t.co/ehBZlN019e
— The Intercept (@theintercept) October 29, 2020
“While he accuses us of political bias, it was he who was attempting to recycle the dubious claims of a political campaign – the Trump campaign – and launder them as journalism,” the statement added.
Greenwald released the most recent draft of the article in question; and in response to The Intercept’s statement, emails discussing the piece with the sites’ editors up until it was refused for publication.
Emails With Intercept Editors Showing Censorship of My Joe and Hunter Biden Article
There’s no reason for anyone to have to decide who to believe. Feel free to see for yourselves what really happened:https://t.co/99KIZnqonP
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 29, 2020
Greenwald, who lives in Brazil, shared the Pulitzer in 2014 for his reporting on leaks by former NSA contractor Snowden about mass electronic surveillance programmes.
Earlier this year, federal prosecutors in the South American nation accused Greenwald of assisting a group of hackers who intercepted the phones of public officials involved in a major corruption inquiry involving the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.
Greenwald’s lawyers called the prosecutors’ allegations “bizarre” and said the accusations challenged the top court ruling protecting the journalist and freedom of the press in Brazil.
