Glenn Greenwald Resigns from the Intercept

https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-resigns-the-intercept/

by ceejayoz • 6 years ago

115 62 6 years ago

To be clear, this is a statement by the Intercept’s Editor in Chief about Greenwald quitting, not a restatement of the story that landed on the front page earlier today.

nickthegreek2• 6 years ago

previous discussion from glenn's substack post can be found at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24933054#24933602

nickthegreek2• 6 years ago

glenn has also posted the correspondance with editors - https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-edito...

blitblitblit• 6 years ago

Greenwald is a highly respected investigative journalist, I wish him the best on his new endeavors.

robertlagrant• 6 years ago

He co-founded The Intercept, for one thing!

henryfjordan• 6 years ago

The article that Greenwald resigned over was just published: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...

llimos• 6 years ago

This sounds like a tantrum. Without knowing any of the facts (or being a US citizen, so not taking sides), Glenn's story seems more credible.

notmyname9173• 6 years ago

Tantrums, rage-quitting, and playing the victim are pretty consistent with his schtick.

It’s sad, really. I used to respect the guy and still follow his work, but I think spending all of his time on conspiracies and abuses of power has maybe warped his perception of reality.

toyg• 6 years ago

Being paranoid does not mean they are not after you.

Greenwald broke some of the biggest stories of the last 20 years. He’s seen the US government downing planes and trampling all over due process just to get hold of some of his sources. His partner was effectively detained and grilled in London for the sole crime of being his partner. He moved to a country that soon suffered a de-facto coup. I think his vision is actually less clouded than ours, to be honest.

LiquidSky• 6 years ago

Why? The Intercept's point is that we indeed don't know the facts, that Greenwald's article contain allegations and innuendos that can't be substantiated with the information currently available, and that therefore they edited it as they would any article to remove what couldn't be currently proven.

Even Greenwald himself acknowledges he doesn't have access to the relevant information. How does that make his claim of political censorship more credible?

Tomte• 6 years ago

Just skimming, some parts stand out. Like this one:

"The Washington Post on Sunday published an op-ed -- by Thomas Rid, one of those centrists establishmentarian professors whom media outlets routinely use to provide the facade of expert approval for deranged conspiracy theories"

A self-respecting school newspaper wouldn't publish that. That's "longform Twitter", not journalism.

gerbal• 6 years ago

The op-ed pages have always been longform twitter, not journalism. The journalism and op-ed sides are different departments with no influence over the other.

jonny_eh• 6 years ago

Greenwald is supposedly an investigative journalist, not a columnist.

parliament323• 6 years ago

A brief glance at the stories The Intercept has published on Biden will suffice to refute those claims.

A brief glance at https://theintercept.com/search/?s=biden in the last month shows me pieces like:

Anatomy of a Lie: How the Trump Campaign Edited Video of Biden to Create a Fake Gaffe
Trump’s Pathetic Attempt to Get Netanyahu to Attack Biden Falls Flat
Move Over, Hunter Biden. Meet Eric Branstad, the China Ambassador’s Son Who Got Rich in Trump’s Swamp.

The only thing that irks me more than biased news sources is biased news sources that are pretending to be impartial.

arcticbull2• 6 years ago

It's unfortunate that reality is often biased. Sometimes, there simply aren't two sides. Frankly the "teach the controversy" stance has led to a lot of negative knock-on effects for traditional journalism, as they are often up against op-eds masquerading as journalism. You can be impartial without representing "both sides." For instance, I don't think history books that paint the Third Reich as exclusively negative aren't being impartial.

I'm not says this is the case necessarily here, but it is something to remember.

vokep2• 6 years ago

Its the difference between a history book with the tone of "then the evil nazis who were the spawn of satan did this and caused suffering because they're evil nazis"

as opposed to

"then the nazis did this and caused a significant degree of suffering widely regarded in the forthcoming decades as among if not the most evil acts ever committed"

The difference is taking things personally, as opposed to a third person observational perspective. Both may come to the same conclusion, but one is hoping you'll be convinced while the other just represents what is known about the reality in question, letting the meaning of it speak for itself. There is even inclusion of opinion, but not personally taken, just noted as occurring.

happytoexplain• 6 years ago

Your evidence doesn't address the statement you are apparently refuting. It only shows that, A. There are a lot of negative Trump stories, which would make sense for a neutral platform, and B. They use unprofessional tone in their headlines, which is certainly a reasonable thing to criticize.

parliament323• 6 years ago

They're claiming they're publishing articles negative on Biden as well, but I don't see any of those from the last few months (you know, the times that matter with the election looming). Do you have any examples?

yokaze• 6 years ago

Those are not stories about Biden, but about someone trying to make a story about Biden in the last month which apparently backfired.

The Intercept is likely pointing to stories like those:

Biden’s Promise Of A Deportation Moratorium Is Nowhere In His Platform
Controversial Data-Mining Firm Palantir Vanishes From Biden Adviser’s Biography After She Joins Campaign
With Tara Reade’s Allegations, Joe Biden’s Campaign Is Only the Latest Chapter of America’s Accountability Problem

Barrin922• 6 years ago

And if you had taken the effort to scroll down one or two months more you would have found: https://imgur.com/dSz0iCg

The Intercept has been consistently critical of Biden and other establishment Democrats which isn't surprising given its progressive slant. The difference, in contrast to Greenwald's framing is just, that this story he wanted to go with is complete and utter rubbish.

finnthehuman2• 6 years ago

He founded The Intercept and could have been the EIC choosing what gets published. But he wanted to focus his work elsewhere. Why are they speaking as if he's a rank and file peon that won't behave?

Forget about the Intercept for a second and try it like this: Imagine a tech startup cofounder wanted to remain in the trenches instead of managing others. Then she's accused of not respecting the management that formed around her. Yeah, no shit, they have to earn it. And it takes a lot of fucking nerve to tell her "you didn't give yourself a management job before now, even though you were at one point free to. Therefore you're unqualified to make this specific managerial decision, even though you deliberately created a contractual route to retain that power over those certain choices even if it isn't your day-to-day job."

admax88q• 6 years ago

Therefore you're unqualified to make this specific managerial decision

They kind of are though. If they've chosen not to be in a management position, they have chosen not the have all the context around decisions, nor devote their mental energy to evaluating and making managerial decisions.

Qualified isn't necessarily the right term, but you can't be the leader only when its convenient, that just won't work.

Barrin922• 6 years ago

the other alternative is that the founder is Elizabeth Holmes and imagines enemies everywhere to prop up her image. Greenwald did good work with the Intercept but he's quite obviously not the only writer at the paper, just like founders aren't necessarily the person carrying companies forward.

panarky• 6 years ago

"While he accuses us of political bias, it was he who was attempting to recycle a political campaign's — the Trump campaign's — dubious claims and launder them as journalism."

The Intercept said it had no doubt that Greenwald would "launch a new media venture where he will face no collaboration with editors — such is the era of Substack and Patreon."

"In that context, it makes good business sense for Glenn to position himself as the last true guardian of investigative journalism and to smear his longtime colleagues and friends as partisan hacks," the Intercept statement reads.

"We get it. But facts are facts and The Intercept record of fearless, rigorous, independent journalism speaks for itself."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/10/29/glenn-greenw...

purple_ferret• 6 years ago

He founded The Intercept and could have been the EIC choosing what gets published. But he wanted to focus his work elsewhere.

TBF, it sounds like he's barely involved (He does live in Brazil after all), and he just uses the intercept as a venue to post articles to which he has full editorial control.

If he doesn't actually have any ownership, nor a title, just a contract that says he can publish articles in exchange for the use of his name, then, yeah, they can tell him whatever they want.

lern_too_spel• 6 years ago

Because he is a rank and file person who won't behave. His editor sent him a list of reasonable corrections. They did not ask him to resign or tell him he was unqualified to make editorial decisions like your version of the story supposes.

Instead of applying the corrections or pulling rank and saying that he's the founder and wants his article to be published despite the damage it might cause to the paper's reputation, Greenwald threw a tantrum, flung a bunch of accusations at the editor, quit, and took it all public.

vokep2• 6 years ago

all of them designed to make him appear as a victim, rather than a grown person throwing a tantrum.

This line itself sounds far more tantrum-like and childish than anything I've seen from Greenwald regarding this.

noxer3• 6 years ago

I would go as far as say its a blatant lie. Nothing he wrote puts him in the victim position at all. He is very aware that he doesn't need them to publish his stuff.

yorwba• 6 years ago

What's happening here is obvious: you know that you can't explicitly say you don't want to publish the article because it raises questions about the candidate you and all other TI Editors want very much to win the election in 5 days. So you have to cast your censorship as an accusation -- an outrageous and inaccurate one -- that my article contains factually false claims, all as a pretext for alleging that my article violates The Intercept's lofty editorial standards and that it's being rejected on journalistic grounds rather than nakedly political grounds.

... does sound like he feels victimized.

threatofrain• 6 years ago

Glenn Greenwald appears to be confirming that the source evidence hasn't been verified and can't be examined by him; further, Tucker Carlson has said that he has evidence yet to be revealed.

Sounds like Glenn's colleagues prevented him from engaging in a preliminary bet when no news agencies outside of NY Post and Fox have seen the source evidence.

At best Glenn can play second-fiddle to Fox and NY Post, engaging in meta-analysis from afar. At worse, Glenn was betting a decent chunk of his brand's credibility.

barbacoa2• 6 years ago

It's not like this evidence is being hidden from the rest of the media. Tony Bobulinski held a public press conference where he brought 3 cell phones with text messages for anyone to examine. The whole NYTimes, Washington Post, CNN crowd just refused to show up.

repo001• 6 years ago

Great response by The Intercept. Pretty much sums up the comments on the previous thread. I do enjoy this new normal, Ok boomer, way of responding to the Greenwalds of the world. Instead of wasting time refuting every ridiculous conspiracy theory or accusation, they treated him like the child he's acting like, gave him the boot, and moved on.

AndrewBissell4• 6 years ago

What ridiculous conspiracy theory are you referring to?

topher_t• 6 years ago

Wanted to read the actual article when I saw all the hubub. Greenwald has been a go to for a long time. Article reads like Trump propaganda.

Central argument is that the 'story' about Hunter Biden's laptop and the emails on it is not being taken seriously by the mainstream media.

The purported emails have not been provided with their metadata as far as I can tell.

The story told by the emails appears to be some vague, 'Hunter Biden was pursuing a business deal and trading on his family name' type thing.

And all of this from an unnamed author in the New York Post citing evidence on a laptop left in a computer repair shop? All sounds completely ludicrous.

Makes me wonder why the hell Greenwald is making so much hay over this. Kompromat?

AndrewBissell4• 6 years ago

If this is all completely ludicrous and made up it would hardly kill the Biden campaign to just issue a statement saying that. I was quite skeptical when the article was first published (especially about the origin of the leaked materials) but have become less so as I've observed no one with any skin in the game actually stepping forward to say the leaks are forged.

thrill• 6 years ago

Until they appear to be doing political damage then there's little point in engaging the claims.

qqqwerty• 6 years ago

The GRU likes to mix genuine documents with fake documents[1]. The e-mails that the NY Post initially released are probably real. If the Bidens confirm they are real, then the NY Post starts dumping everything else that they have, real or not, and points back to his initial confirmation. If Biden denies, then they get someone on record confirming they are real (Tucker sort of did this on his show already) and claim he is lying. It is pretty telling that the NY Post refuses to give the raw material to anyone credible to try and independently authenticate the documents. They are just trying to trap him into making a false denial.

And from Bidens' perspective, the e-mails are mostly a "nothing burger" even if real. At worst, some influence peddling by people close to the VP. So what is the point in giving this any more attention? It looks like the mid-west is going to swing this election, and right now they are getting slammed with COVID. The only folks who remotely care about the NY Post story are already solidly in Trumps camp. The voters that he is trying to reach have no idea what the "laptop from hell" is. So from the Biden perspective, ignoring the story is probably the best move. A confirmation/denial would likely get picked up by mainstream press, who so far have been staying away from it because of the issues with sourcing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Macron_e-mail_leaks

berryjerry2• 6 years ago

The problem is people see anything against democrats as 'Trump propaganda.' It may be hard to believe but everyone on either side isn't all gumdrops and kisses. There is so much evidence that the laptop is real, nude photos, nude videos, no assertion that it is fake, apparently even Hunter's lawyer requested the laptop back. Metadata is spoofable anyways and hardly prooves it is real, what proves it is real is the FBI, who can and will request text records from cell phone companies/tech giants, or corroborating e-mails from the recipient, or say someone who worked with Biden also testifying to it's authenticity (this which happened.) Something with so much overwhelming evidence at least the majority of information is true is crazy it still doesn't get any play on so many news stations and websites. Apparently they even know the source of the laptop and have a receipt. That's just what's off the top of my head, go read his e-mails and article for more reasons. Even presented with these reasons they only stop responding and say HE is the one unwilling to cooperate, I mean the audacity.

jariel• 6 years ago

This is really brutal, and without knowing 'the truth' it's pretty rare for entities to use these kinds of harsh words and it won't land well him.

etiam• 6 years ago

The end tag is pretty comical in this context

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The kind of reporting we do is essential to democracy, but it is not easy, cheap, or profitable. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. We don’t have ads, so we depend on our members — 55,000 and counting — to help us hold the powerful to account. Joining is simple and doesn’t need to cost a lot: You can become a sustaining member for as little as $3 or $5 a month. That’s all it takes to support the journalism you rely on.

vinhboy• 6 years ago

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-edito...

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...

Now that the article and the email exchanges are released, it's clear to me that Greenwald once again used his popularity to peddle conspiracy and victimhood. In my opinion he has lost all his credibility.

I am angry that he did this and many people on here bought it.

mariusor• 6 years ago

peddle conspiracy

I think that's a very uncharitable way of framing his questions. He's not passing any judgement (that I saw) that the documents are true or not, he wants an official position from the Biden campaign relating to them.

grizzles• 6 years ago

I respect him but my opinion of his credibility dropped quite a bit when The Intercept burned Reality Winner.

He claims it was the fault of a colleague but he's still comfortable calling himself the founder of the org. Take some responsibility for Christ's sake.

In a decent world Joe Biden would pardon her on his first day.

adultSwim• 6 years ago

It's sad that they felt the need to punch back so hurtfully.

oska• 6 years ago

Putting aside the whole debate about the material, it really is remarkable how nasty this response is from The Intercept. Unprofessionally nasty I would say.

vaccinator• 6 years ago

The Intercept's future doesn't look too promising... without Glenn Greenwald.

Glenn Greenwald Resigns from the Intercept

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