Noted US journalist Glenn Greenwald announced on Thursday he had quit The Intercept, a news website he had co-founded in 2014. Greenwald led the reporting of The Guardian on the Edward Snowden documents of US surveillance; The Guardian received the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2014 for its coverage of the Snowden documents.
Greenwald has been a critic of government surveillance and alleged subversion worldwide. In recent weeks, Greenwald has been critical of the 'mainstream' US media's lack of coverage of the contents of a laptop of Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, Democrat candidate for president.
On October 14, the New York Post cited emails from a laptop from Hunter Biden that purportedly showed he introduced a Ukrainian businessman to Joe Biden, when the latter was vice president.
The New York Post and other rightwing media outlets published more articles in subsequent weeks, alleging Hunter Biden had peddled influence to his father with businesses and state actors in China and Russia.
Much of the US mainstream media ignored or downplayed the claims against Hunter Biden as "disinformation", while social media outlets Twitter and Facebook blocked sharing of the New York Post article.
Greenwald had referred to the actions of the mainstream media and social media as attempts to shield their "preferred candidate", referring to Joe Biden.
On Thursday, Greenwald uploaded a post on Twitter about his resignation from The Intercept. "The same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the national press generally have engulfed the media outlet I co-founded, culminating in censorship of my own articles," Greenwald wrote.
In the post, Greenwald wrote he had submitted an article to The Intercept "about the Hunter Biden materials and Joe Biden’s conduct regarding Ukraine and China". He referred to the suppression of his story as "brute censorship".
"In the days heading into a presidential election, I am somehow silenced from expressing any views that random editors in New York find disagreeable, and now somehow have to conform my writing and reporting to cater to their partisan desires and eagerness to elect specific candidates," Greenwald wrote.
The Intercept fired back at Greenwald by issuing a statement. "GLENN GREENWALD’S DECISION to resign from The Intercept stems from a fundamental disagreement over the role of editors in the production of journalism and the nature of censorship. 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 statement noted.
"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," The Intercept claimed.
Greenwald's resignation is being interpreted by supporters of President Donald Trump as a sign of the US mainstream media acting at the behest of the Democrat Party. Trump had recently alleged there was “suppression” of the press in the US, as he criticised lack of coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop.
