Guardian in the news with US spying scoop
Source: Agencies |
June 9, 2013, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
BEFORE this week, the Guardian newspaper's gradual move into the United States -- hiring dozens of employees in the last two years -- hadn't produced much of a splash in terms of scoops.
In the last three days that's changed.
The London-based newspaper, which started publishing in Manchester, England, in 1821 has established a significant presence in Washington by uncovering the vast scope of secret surveillance operations carried out by US officials at the National Security Agency.
The revelations have put President Barack Obama and his national security team on the defensive with reports of government snooping on a comprehensive scale. Its coverage expanded on Friday to Britain with an exclusive report that the United Kingdom's electronic surveillance agency also has had access to the information trove collected by the US government.
While there had been hints of government accessing domestic US phone records in the past, including reporting of domestic surveillance by the NSA that earned a Pulitzer Prize for the New York Times in 2006, Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer turned journalist, blogger and commentator for the Guardian, broke the news last Wednesday that the NSA had collected the telephone records of millions of US customers of the telecom giant Verizon under a recent secret court order.
A day later, the Washington Post's Barton Gellman weighed in on the existence of another secret NSA program - codenamed PRISM - that reportedly gave the US government direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants.
Greenwald's piece on that same program appeared only about 20 minutes after the Post's story broke online. Gellman, himself a Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter, was quoted by the Huffington Post that he "started to hear some footsteps, so I had to move."
The stories have brought the Guardian wide attention in media circles and its website a substantial spike in traffic - figures show a 20 percent increase in Internet visits. Thursday was its busiest day for US traffic ever, it says.
Steven Barnett, a communications professor at the University of Westminster, called the Guardian's journalistic achievements in recent days "a breakthrough" in the paper's bid to establish a stronger presence in the US.
The company has been moving into the US market in a determined way in recent years - with 57 employees in place - but hasn't had a major impact on the US national debate until now.
In the last three days that's changed.
The London-based newspaper, which started publishing in Manchester, England, in 1821 has established a significant presence in Washington by uncovering the vast scope of secret surveillance operations carried out by US officials at the National Security Agency.
The revelations have put President Barack Obama and his national security team on the defensive with reports of government snooping on a comprehensive scale. Its coverage expanded on Friday to Britain with an exclusive report that the United Kingdom's electronic surveillance agency also has had access to the information trove collected by the US government.
While there had been hints of government accessing domestic US phone records in the past, including reporting of domestic surveillance by the NSA that earned a Pulitzer Prize for the New York Times in 2006, Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer turned journalist, blogger and commentator for the Guardian, broke the news last Wednesday that the NSA had collected the telephone records of millions of US customers of the telecom giant Verizon under a recent secret court order.
A day later, the Washington Post's Barton Gellman weighed in on the existence of another secret NSA program - codenamed PRISM - that reportedly gave the US government direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants.
Greenwald's piece on that same program appeared only about 20 minutes after the Post's story broke online. Gellman, himself a Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter, was quoted by the Huffington Post that he "started to hear some footsteps, so I had to move."
The stories have brought the Guardian wide attention in media circles and its website a substantial spike in traffic - figures show a 20 percent increase in Internet visits. Thursday was its busiest day for US traffic ever, it says.
Steven Barnett, a communications professor at the University of Westminster, called the Guardian's journalistic achievements in recent days "a breakthrough" in the paper's bid to establish a stronger presence in the US.
The company has been moving into the US market in a determined way in recent years - with 57 employees in place - but hasn't had a major impact on the US national debate until now.
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