Media

Two-Time Pulitzer Winner James Risen, Formerly of the Freep, Leaving NY Times

July 31, 2017, 1:36 PM


James Risen (Photo: Vimeo)

Famed two-time Pulitzer Prize winner James Risen, whose resume includes stints at the Detroit Free Press and the Los Angeles Times Detroit bureau, is taking a buyout from the New York Times, Huffington Post reports. He has worked at the paper since 1998.

Risen was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team covering intelligence and global terrorism in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001. In 2006, Risen and fellow reporter Eric Lichtblau won the Pulitzer for what the Pulitzer committee described as "their carefully sourced stories on secret domestic eavesdropping that stirred a national debate on the boundary line between fighting terrorism and protecting civil liberty."

"Few people in this generation have meant more for journalism than Jim Risen. Imagine what twisted propaganda we would believe without his stories on warrantless wiretapping, secret prisons, torture and more," fellow Times reporter Matt Apuzzo wrote on Face. "A two-time Pulitzer winner. A legend. A mentor, and a friend."

The Times, like many other major papers around the country, has been on a push in the past several years to buyout reporters to reduce costs.

Risen frequently made the news himself, including in his owner paper, as a result of reporting for his book, State of War, which focused on the CIA.  Both the Bush and Obama administrations tried to compel him, through threats of jail, to disclose his source. The legal battle ended in 2015 with Risen never going to jail or disclosing his source.

In 1981, three years after graduating from Northwestern University's Medill graduate program, Risen joined the Freep, covering labor and the auto industry.  In 1984, he joined the Los Angeles Times, first as the Detroit bureau chief covering the auto industry for six years. He went on to work in the paper's Washington bureau. In 1998, he joined the New York Times.

Times executive editor Dean Baquet called Risen “one of the giants of national security and investigative reporting.” He said in a statement that the paper would “miss him greatly," according to the Huffpost.

The Empire Files: Abby Martin with NYT’s James Risen on Fighting Censorship from teleSUR English on Vimeo.


Read more:  Huffpost


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