The Intercept founder Glenn Greenwald has resigned from the company, citing censorship as his reason for leaving, while the staff at The Intercept has stated Greenwald was having “a tantrum” because editors checked his work.
After receiving worldwide attention for a series of articles featuring classified material released by former US security contractor Edward Snowden, Greenwald began a campaign questioning the legitimacy of US military and surveillance operations around the world.
Greenwald, a former constitutional law attorney, has won Pulitzer and Polk awards for his journalism. He now lives in Brazil.
The staff at The Intercept stated that Greenwald is misrepresenting the reason for his departure from the site, saying that Greenwald objected to people editing and checking his work.
“Glenn demands the absolute right to determine what he will publish. He believes that anyone who disagrees with him is corrupt, and anyone who presumes to edit his words is a censor,” The Intercept posted in a statement.
“Thus, the preposterous charge that The Intercept’s editors and reporters, with the lone, noble exception of Glenn Greenwald, have betrayed our mission to engage in fearless investigative journalism because we have been seduced by the lure of a Joe Biden presidency,” the statement continues. “A brief glance at the stories The Intercept has published on Biden will suffice to refute those claims.”
Greenwald has recently taken up the mantle of a Trump conspiracy supporter, claiming that “Deep State” and Obama-Biden operatives were spying on the 2016 Trump campaign, allegations which have no basis in reality.
“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 Intercept writes.
“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.”