Glenn Greenwald

Our guest this week is Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald is, with Amy Goodman, a recipient of one of the inaugural Izzy Awards from the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College.

Greenwald is a former constitutional lawyer who started blogging in 2005, acting as his own editor/publisher in the I.F. Stone tradition. In 2007 he moved his popular blog to Salon.com, retaining full editorial freedom. Week after week, in meticulously documented and detailed blog posts, he skewers hypocrisy, deception and revisionism on the part of the powers that be in government and the media. His 2008 reporting on a false claim about 9/11 by then-U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey led to a retraction. With devastatingly crisp arguments, Greenwald has inveighed against torture and defended constitutional rights for all, whether they be “enemy combatants” or American protesters. He has toughly criticized both Republicans and Democrats, and his blogging frequently sparks debate in major media and on Capitol Hill.

The Izzy Award is named after the legendary dissident journalist Isidor Feinstein “Izzy” Stone, who launched his muckraking newsletter “I.F. Stone’s Weekly” in 1953 during the height of the McCarthy witch hunts. Stone, who died in 1989, exposed government deceit and corruption while championing civil liberties, racial justice and international diplomacy.