Glenn Greenwald is a multi-award winning investigative journalist and book author who came to fame in 2013 with The Guardian’s publication of the Edward Snowden revelations. A civil rights and constitutional lawyer by trade, Greenwald turned journalist and book author in 2005.
Greenwald gave up his career as a litigation attorney in order to focus on his political writing. His blog Unclaimed Territory addressed national security issues and the political impact on civil liberties in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. From 2007 onwards Greenwald started spreading his insights and thoughts as a columnist for Salon, and from 2012 in the same capacity for The Guardian. Both outlets were prepared to cater to his needs and granted him editorial freedom.
In June 2013, while at The Guardian, Greenwald began publishing a series of reports detailing previously unknown information about American and British global surveillance programs based on classified documents provided by Edward Snowden. His work contributed to The Guardian and The Washington Post winning a Pulitzer Prize.
In 2013 Greenwald co-founded the online news organization The Intercept, a media outlet launched in 2014, where journalists would enjoy the right of editorial freedom. In October 2020 he left his position as co-founding editor. Greenwald moved to Substack for editorial independence which he was denied at The Intercept.
Glenn Greenwald resigned because he refused to get cancelled. The Intercept editors tried to censor an opinion column he wrote just days prior to the presidential election. His column was critical of Joe Biden, raising questions about his conduct after recently revealed emails found on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Greenwald also took issue with the demeanor of corporate media and Sillicon Valley who not only refused to cover this story, but actively suppressed it.
The editorial leadership at The Intercept was adamant that no criticism whatsoever be voiced against their preferred presidential candidate.
Yet, they went even further in their unjustified demands. The attempted censorship went as far as demanding that Greenwald refrain from his contractual right to publish elsewhere articles which he wrote and The Intercept refused to publish.
Greenwald was not prepared to put up witch such a blatant breach of his contract. He voiced his annoyance openly in his resignation letter. “I have been extremely disenchanted and saddened by the editorial direction of The Intercept under its New York leadership for quite some time. The publication we founded without those editors back in 2014 now bears absolutely no resemblance to what we set out to build -- not in content, structure, editorial mission or purpose.”
These events were just the tipping point of a development looming ahead. In an article published on Substack explaining the reasons for his resignation, Greenwald states that “Making all of this worse, The Intercept — while gradually excluding the co-founders from any role in its editorial mission or direction, and making one choice after the next to which I vocally objected as a betrayal of our core mission — continued publicly to trade on my name in order to raise funds for journalism it knew I did not support.”
Greenwald did not get fired technically. He left because he chose to do so. And he chose to do so because he was deprived of his most crucial contractual right and a quintessential founding principle — editorial freedom.
Those responsible for this escalation were the New York based editors under the helm of Editor-In-Chief Betsy Reed, pictured above.
Reed's reaction to Greenwald’s reasoning for his resignation: a sweeping blow on The Intercept’s website. She claims that “The narrative Glenn presents about his departure is teeming with distortions and inaccuracies — all of them designed to make him appear as a victim, rather than a grown person throwing a tantrum.”
Greenwald published his email exchange with The Intercept to document how this story really evolved.
Reed goes on to say that “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.”
Reed's reference relates to the contents on Hunter Biden’s laptop — successfully suppressed by the media and Big Tech prior to the presidential election — which at the very least raise questions as to Joe Biden’s possible involvement. Needless to say that Hunter Biden continues to be under DOJ investigation because of these findings, and that this investigation may well have an impact on Joe Biden.
It is noteworthy that The Intercept journalists continue to spread personal and professional accusations about Greenwald in an attempt to undermine his credibility as a journalist and as a person, going as far as questioning his mental health.
Greenwald leaves no doubt about his feelings when he writes that “Depicting critics of liberal orthodoxies as mentally ill, rage-driven bullies, and shadows of their former selves, is a long-time tactic of guardians of establishment liberalism to expel dissidents from their in-group circles.”
On the day of his resignation on 29 October 2020 Greenwald started publishing his work on Substack. He has published a series of articles since then.
He expressed his gratitude shortly after the launch of his site on Substack, saying that “I had no idea what to expect when I decided to leave The Intercept and move my journalism here, but the outpouring of support — both words of encouragement from readers and those subscribing and supporting my work here — has been beyond what I can describe and it is incredibly gratifying and appreciated.”
Greenwald appears regularly on different shows on television and online. His regular appearance on FOX News and in particular on Tucker Carlson’s show has triggered a lot of criticism from his left leaning readership.
In one of his articles Greenwald mentions that he had already been exploring the creation of a new media outlet prior to his resignation. It is not clear whether this project is still in the making.
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