Investigative Reporter James Risen Describes His Long Fight To Report On Government Secrets At The New York Times

Cheney/Bush & Obama officials and New York Times editors conspired to suppress the information that was eventually released by Edward Snowden a decade later.

By Jeremy Scahill
Intercepted (1/5/19)

Investigative journalist James Risen fought hard to get classified information published at The New York Times, where editors were quite willing to cooperate with the government.

In this video, Intercepted host Jeremy Scahill speaks to Risen about his yearslong battle with the Department of Justice — spanning both the Bush and the Obama administrations — as well as his struggles with his own editors at the New York Times.

Link to Story and 11-Minute Video

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The Biggest Secret: James Risen On Life As A New York Times Reporter In The Shadow Of The War On Terror

Democracy Now! (1/5/18)

We spend the hour with former New York Times reporter James Risen, who left the paper in August to join The Intercept as senior national security correspondent. This week, he published a 15,000-word story headlined “The Biggest Secret: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror.” The explosive piece describes his struggles to publish major national security stories in the post-9/11 period and how both the government and his own editors at The New York Times suppressed his reporting, including reports on the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, for which he would later win the Pulitzer Prize.

Risen describes meetings between key Times editors and top officials at the CIA and the White House. His refusal to name a source would take him to the Supreme Court, and he almost wound up in jail, until the Obama administration blinked.

Link to Story and 45-Minute Video

  • PART TWO: How The New York Times & U.S. Government Worked Together To Suppress James Risen’s Post-9/11 Reporting — We continue our interview with former New York Times reporter James Risen, who left the paper in August to join The Intercept as senior national security correspondent. This week, he published a 15,000-word story headlined The Biggest Secret: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror.Read the Rest and 30-Minute Video

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The Intercept: James Risen & The Biggest Secret

The big secret was the government wasn’t following its own laws.

By James Risen
The Intercept (1/3/18)

I was sitting in the nearly empty restaurant of the Westin Hotel in Alexandria, Virginia, getting ready for a showdown with the federal government that I had been trying to avoid for more than seven years. The Obama administration was demanding that I reveal the confidential sources I had relied on for a chapter about a botched CIA operation in my 2006 book, “State of War.” I had also written about the CIA operation for the New York Times, but the paper’s editors had suppressed the story at the government’s request. It wasn’t the only time they had done so.

BUNDLED AGAINST THE freezing wind, my lawyers and I were about to reach the courthouse door when two news photographers launched into a perp-walk shoot. As a reporter, I had witnessed this classic scene dozens of times, watching in bemusement from the sidelines while frenetic photographers and TV crews did their business. I never thought I would be the perp, facing those whirring cameras.

As I walked past the photographers into the courthouse that morning in January 2015, I saw a group of reporters, some of whom I knew personally. They were here to cover my case, and now they were waiting and watching me. I felt isolated and alone. …

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