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.
I sure hope this guy puts enough effort into debunking fake and misattributed photos and other “evidence”. It’s a pretty big industry as I’m sure we all know. Yes, I’m talking about you, Human Rights Watch.
TI in a nutshell
364 days of the year: the NYT stinks, it is elitist, it is establishment, it is pro-NSA, what a bunch of corporate shills!
Today TI hires a former NYT staff: welcome aboard buddy!!
You’d think that at some point TI’s commentators would realize that while they deride the “MSM,” TI steadily hires from their ranks. I guess joining TI is a kind of “come to Jesus moment” in a journos life. You have been purified!!
Hallelujah brother!
Journalism is the new Jesus and TI will Save Us All from nothing in particular…
I live in Thailand, we have “no free press” according to outside assessors of such matters. This is not because we are weak and corrupted – who isn’t? – it is just because we don’t value one or need one. We still like each other and talk to each other and generally agree on thin gs together and have half an idea what is going on where and when.
Journalist:
– Get to write about stuff instead of doing it
– Get to pretend to be neutral when they never can be
– Get more legal rights and protections than the average person
– Get the right to stick their noses in places average persons cannot
– Get a free hand to make criminal and political contacts that would otherwise undermine someone’s credibility
– Get information which they can and do censor and control access to
– Get a salary for their “troubles”
– Get an awards ceremony for their “troubles”
– Get to jump ship whenever they fancy, as in this example
– Expect us to laud, applaud and pay for their efforts
Woodwood and Burnstein have a lot to answer for…
I see they haven’t post my comments. Typical..They only want the lackeys comments, but anything critical they behave like 5 year olds. You put yourself out there brother writing for the public you are going to be held accountable.
whatever man…i guess a little dose of new york times propaganda is just what the intercept needs.
Welcome Mr. Mackey!
We hope you adopt the reporting standards of The Intercept – Throw away the NYT non-standards!
Do you think the quality of reporting at TI will improve? It’s become pretty pathetic these days. You will need to create sections so that readers visit only those they are interested in. Right now it’s a jumble of stale articles along with an occasional new one tucked in inconspicuously. The comments as always are interesting, though I find of late most of the hypochondriacs have disappeared.
This new guy from NYT – I hope he is not among the jokers there that Mr Greenwald loves to berate? (Not that I have any great opinion of anyone associated with NYT.)
He obviously isn’t.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/693189347953221633
Fantastic news that you guys are expanding – congratulations.
Welcome to Mr. Mackey, and good on ya for giving up the CIA dollars. (We hope.)
Welcome, sir.
Bigger the Intercept is = bigger chance that the CIA will infiltrate it. Human rights are misused to bomb countries, to justify imperialism, killing in the name of profit, those who propagate pacifism while gov kills people are very good for the gov, I don’t trust to pacifists, they can be corrupted by the secret service.
That’s how they control leftists, they corrupt those who are pacifists to spy and decrease influence of militants, after that they can make wars without problem (with protests) in domestic country. Colonial politics is developed, including war propaganda and all other elements of repression and justification of killing.
I hope all authors will do what wikileaks and intercept did in the beginning, discovering of war crimes, spying and breaking human rights by colonists. If we want to see breaking of human rights by Iranian gov, we can watch CNN, we don’t need to visit The Intercept.
I don’t think the CIA are interested in infiltrating it. The Intercept are censoring comments as it is, and do not ever publish readership figures, which I guess run into the tens-of-thousands rather than the millions.
Excellent!…always favor one who can recognize evidence over gossip…
Welcome!
Betsy Reed is Editor-in-Chief of The Intercept. She is also the editor of the essay collection “Nothing Sacred: Women Respond to Religious Fundamentalism and Terror” published in 2003.
Mr. Mackey
“……“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……”
That is a fabrication on the part of the Intercept. The statement really means “western governments” and their allies (with rare exceptions). At any rate, welcome to the Intercept from the state-operated New York Times.
So he is going to be spending his time writing about the USA. Good on him.
Just what the Intercept needed. They lack coverage in this area…….
There is plenty of coverage for “non-western” governments. Intercept is filling in the missing coverage.
Perhaps what is bothering some people who object to Intercept’s exposition of abuses in the west is that they don’t like the reflection they see in the mirror!
Please, at least some semblance of balance, fairness, rechecking sources when he writes about Israel and specifically, the Jewish residency communities in Judea and Samaria.
Welcome to The Intercept.
I hope you will be able address the injustice that Tian Tian the Panda has received virtually no coverage of his presidential campaign, with the exception of one viral video about a week ago. And this despite the fact that he’s the most attractive candidate out there and furthermore that if elected, he would be the first panda to occupy the White House.
If you do indeed care about democratic reform, then you must be enraged by how both mainstream parties have locked Tian Tian out of their nomination process. He is the sort of non-partisan candidate who would have felt equally at home in either party. His unique ability to appeal to both black and white would have allowed him to begin a racial healing process that a purely black candidate or a purely white candidate could never achieve.
In fact, he would be a perfect ambassador of the United States to the entire world. So I can’t agree with those who argue that his lack of a US birth certificate should disqualify him. Yes, he is the property of China, but how is that different from being the property of Halliburton, or Walmart, or even being an actual commercial entity such as Trump? (as commenter Wnt, who I assume also supports his candidacy, pointed out).
I have not been able to convince any other reporter at The Intercept to take up his cause, so the opportunity is there, waiting for you to seize it.
We also need to find the unredacted cargo manifest for the Lusitania, and also more clues as to who was responsible for the Preparedness Day Bombing (the centennial is July 22). Perhaps he can pull those rabbits out of his hat, Duce.
Dignity – (The Constitution of South Africa) Wikipedia
South Africa
The Constitution of South Africa lists “human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms” as one of the founding values of the South African state, and the Bill of Rights is described as affirming the “democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom”. Section 10 of the Constitution explicitly states that “Everyone has inherent dignity and the right to have their dignity respected and protected.” In jurisprudence, the right to dignity is often seen as underlying more specific rights, such as equality, security of the person or privacy, but it has been directly applied in a number of cases relating to criminal punishment, the law of defamation, and the right to marriage and family life.[57]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity
5.0 out of 5 stars Helpful for the Spiritual but not Religious, April 10, 2014
By Rev. Brad Karelius
This review is from: Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever’s Search for the Truth about Everything (Hardcover) by Barbara Ehrenreich (Author)
Barbara reminds us that half of Americans reveal that they have had some kind of mystical experience. ~ Rev. Brad Karelius
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2ZBA9RELRLD81/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1455501743&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=283155&store=books
China jails rights activists ‘over pro-democracy books’
29 January 2016
From the section China
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35437098
Is it just me? I don’t get the title of this article:
Free Lucky…kill Lucky? Endangered elephant’s life hangs in balance as animal group sues zoo
Published time: 30 Jan, 2016 05:01
https://www.rt.com/usa/330680-lucky-elephant-lawsuit-zoo/
Congratulations, Robert Mackey! Every best of success with The Intercept. Looking forward to reading and, perhaps, commenting about your related and upcoming works.
Netanyahu accuses UN’s Ban of ‘encouraging terror’
Latest update : 27/01/2016
http://m.france24.com/en/20160126-israel-netanyahu-accuses-un-ban-ki-moon-encouraging-terror
Just a heads up, Haiti will probably be the best place to look for human rights abuses for the next couple weeks…
Six Eyes
Yup. @BernieSanders gets it. berniesanders.com pic.twitter.com/0lKblTDRrv
https://mobile.twitter.com/MarkRuffalo/status/693259013958541312
Dignity – (Violations of) Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity
Welcome Robert Mackey, I don’t know who you are? I apologize for that. I’m a little curious as to what you will bring to the table? I have high expectations.
TI is a great organization because of the staff, from top to bottom. You are a lucky person……
He has been commenting here as “Nate”.
Robert Mackey complements The Intercept perfectly.
Welcome!
Excellent! Looking enthusiastically forward to reading and viewing your work Mr. Mackey.
Welcome, Mr. Mackey. Hopefully your time spent scouring the Internet is more productive than mine.
Welcome to The Intercept Mr. Mackey. I look forward to reading your reporting.