WaPo vs. WaPo: Edward Snowden’s pardon campaign
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Published in
3 min readSep 24, 2016
edited by Marco Nurra
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- Three of the four media outlets that received and published large numbers of secret NSA documents provided by Edward Snowden — The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Intercept — have called for the U.S. government to allow the NSA whistleblower to return to the U.S. with no charges. The Washington Post is the first paper to call for the prosecution of its own source (after accepting a Pulitzer). “WaPo makes history,” wrote Glenn Greenwald last Sunday. Here’s why The Washington Post is wrong about Edward Snowden. Or, as Margaret Sullivan wrote in the same Washington Post: as a source — and a patriot — Edward Snowden deserves a presidential pardon.
“Snowden made it possible for journalists to provide a historic public service to his country. And his country ought to show him some appreciation, not threaten him with imprisonment or keep him in exile.”
- A new Justice Department inspector general’s report giving the FBI a pass on its impersonation of a journalist hit home. Law enforcement officials apparently don’t realize how dangerous a masquerade can be.
- Five months after the release of the Panama Papers, The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has published leaked Bahamas info to add to its offshore database. This information has been combined with data from the Panama Papers and other leaked offshore documents to give additional weight to one of the largest public databases of offshore entities in history. When paired with the Panama Papers, the Bahamas data provide fresh insights into the offshore dealings of politicians, criminals and executives as well as the bankers and lawyers who help move money. The Offshore Leaks Database now contains information on close to 500,000 entities linked to 200 countries and territories.
- A new study from the Tow Center examines terrorism, fear and the ballot box. This paper is part of a series on journalism and terrorism that is the product of a partnership between the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and Democracy Fund Voice.
- Mexico: 12 journalists murdered since the start of the year. Two more Mexican journalists were slain last week. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sounds the alarms and urges the local authorities to quickly identify those behind these murders.
- Twitter shares surge amid rumors Google or Salesforce may place bids. Shares rose by 21% in early trading after CNBC reported the firm had “received expressions of interest from several technology or media companies.”
- Dutch publisher The Correspondent has grown to 47,000 paying subscribers. Rather than follow the hype cycle of daily news, it covers topics that have an ongoing daily impact on readers. “Instead of the weather, we cover climate change,” explained Ernst-Jan Pfauth, publisher and co-founder of The Correspondent.
- How Quartz made its chat bot more ‘human’. Zach Seward, senior vice-president of product and executive editor, explained the “conversational interface” behind the Quartz app.
- Collaboration is key in today’s newsrooms. Carla Zanoni and Jennifer Hicks (The Wall Street Journal) shared their thoughts on collaboration, along with advice for employees at any level of an organization:
Last week, we dealt with the same topic in our roundup:
- While many news organizations are closing down their comment sections, The New York Times is using technology to double down. This week, the Times announced a commenting-focused partnership with Jigsaw, the technology skunkworks of Google’s parent company, Alphabet. The newspaper is working with Jigsaw to create a new moderation system that will increase the speed at which comments are reviewed.
International Journalism Festival is the biggest annual media event in Europe. It’s an open invitation to interact with the best of world journalism. All sessions are free entry for all attendees, all venues are situated in the stunning setting of the historic town centre of Perugia.
