We are delighted to announce that Robert Mackey is joining The Intercept to report on and analyze news events that center around human rights abuses and democratic reform across the world. Mackey’s column will help fulfill one of our key editorial objectives: to provide vibrant and comprehensive coverage of breaking news.
Mackey comes to us from the New York Times, where he pioneered online coverage of foreign news with his column “Open Source,” reporting and understanding the biggest stories through the prism of social media. Before that, he was the editor and main writer of the Times’ news blog “The Lede,” anchoring hundreds of live accounts of breaking events, including the post-election protests in Iran in 2009, the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, and the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.
A consistent theme of Mackey’s work has been finding and evaluating evidence — often videos and photos — of human rights abuses posted online by witnesses and activists, often in repressive states that are U.S. allies. Mackey, who started at the Times as a fact-checker and studied film at New York University, relies in his journalism on careful evaluations of witness accounts, particularly videos, that are posted on social networks.
“Having spent much of the past seven years chronicling the suppression of dissent, often through appalling violence against peaceful protesters, I am excited by the chance to contribute to The Intercept’s mission to hold governments to account for their actions,” Mackey says.
At The Intercept, he will scour the internet for hidden stories, looking for firsthand accounts, like video or images recorded by activists involved in protests, that provide depth and context missing from other media coverage. He brings an astonishing depth of forensic skills to the job, having contributed articles, interviews, and essays to the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Slate, and The Guardian, as well as producing video reports for British television and Wired.
Mackey joins us in February and the column will launch later in the month.
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy.
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
Contact the author:
Latest Stories
Voices
How Trump’s America Produces Normie Assassins
The only extremism would-be assassins like suspect Cole Tomas Allen share is an extreme response to Trump’s deranging politics.
Meet the Four Democrats Who’ll Decide If Trump Gets His Domestic Spying Law
“It all comes down to those four,” said an advocate, “and if they are going to continue to try to hand Trump warrantless surveillance.”
CIA Ran MK-ULTRA Experiments on Prisoners of War in U.S. Custody, Declassified Docs Confirm
For the first time, documents confirm the CIA carried out tests on North Korean POWs and planned for much more invasive experimentation.