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Nothing let's you see how easily reporters spread falsehoods like first-hand knowledge: I didn't "pass" on the RW leak. It was never offered to me. The doc arrived by mail in NYC & TI's editor-in-chief assigned it to an experienced team. It wasn't offered to me, & TI reported it: https://twitter.com/dnvolz/status/1305350349113491456
7 years after TI's launch, some reporters refuse to acknowledge - due to ideological resentment (Russiagate), professional jealousy and sexism - that TI has an editor-in-chief and it's not me. I don't run TI. Our editorial team in NYC does. My primary focus is on my reporting:
Once I heard about the doc, my opinion - as I've said publicly - was (and still is): it was newsworthy, but not conclusive, because it was anonymously authored by NSA & had no underlying evidence. But as NYT says, I had no role in reporting it because it was assigned to others.
Given the US Govt's war on whistleblowers, TI isn't the only news outlet to have a source arrested. The NYT & Ben-Smith-led-BuzzFeed forgot to mention it also happened to them. But TI acknowledged its mistakes 3 years ago, instituted reforms & has gone on to break major stories.
For years, the tactic of jealous & bitter journalists was to claim I was responsible for the RW errors. Now that the NYT makes clear what we said all along - I had no role in the story - the criticism shifts. They don't care about RW or press freedoms, only petty resentments.
Like any news outlet that does complex, high-risk, NatSec reporting, of course TI has made mistakes. I've made my own (though not in this story, which wasn't mine). We have internal debates. But TI has a large team of highly skilled journalists & editors that breaks huge stories.
TI will have its own statement on key points & misleading parts of the NYT story, but it's amazing to watch some journalists take a story that says I had no role in this & try to focus it on me with falsehoods. It shows what their priorities are (pettiness), and are not (news).
One other point I'll make. the NYT hints that it wasn't TI's errors that led to Reality Winner's arrest. They caught her because of the clues she left. But NYT buries this because it destroys their drama. The WashPost & others reported this years ago:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/06/06/did-the-intercept-bungle-nsa-leak/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/06/06/did-the-intercept-bungle-nsa-leak/
That the source would have easily been caught no matter what doesn't excuse or even mitigate TI's errors. Those were real and that's why reforms have been instituted.
But it does show who really cares about RW & press freedom, and who wants to exploit the story for malice.
But it does show who really cares about RW & press freedom, and who wants to exploit the story for malice.
