Jeremy Scahill | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Scahill in 2013 | |
| Born | Jeremy M. Scahill 1974 (age 51–52) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Education | Wauwatosa East High School University of Wisconsin (dropped out) |
| Occupation | Investigative journalist |
| Employer | Drop Site News |
| Notable work | Blackwater |
Jeremy Scahill (born 1974) is an American activist, author, andinvestigative journalist. He is a founding editor of the online news publicationThe Intercept and author ofBlackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (2007), which won theGeorge Polk Book Award. His bookDirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield (2013) was adapted into adocumentary film which premiered at theSundance Film Festival and was nominated for the 2014Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In July 2024, he leftThe Intercept and, together withRyan Grim and Nausicaa Renner, foundedDrop Site News.
Scahill is a Fellow at theType Media Center. Scahill learned journalism and started his career on the independentlysyndicated daily news showDemocracy Now!. He publishes apodcast titledIntercepted.
Scahill was born inChicago, Illinois, and was raised inWauwatosa, Wisconsin, a suburb ofMilwaukee, by "social activist" parents, Lisa and Michael Scahill, both nurses.[1] He graduated fromWauwatosa East High School in 1992.[2]His father grew up on the South Side of Chicago, son of Irish immigrants in a Catholic family. He had planned to be a seminarian.[3]Jeremy attended a fewUniversity of Wisconsin regional campuses and a localtechnical college before deciding that his "time would be better spent by entering the struggle for justice in this country." Afterdropping out of college, Scahill spent several years on the East Coast working inhomeless shelters. He started his career as an unpaid intern at the nonprofit news programDemocracy Now! of thePacifica Radio network. While he was atDemocracy Now!, Scahill learned the technical side of radio, and learned "journalism as a trade, rather than an academic study".[4]
Discussing the roots of his activism, Scahill said: "I think we all have to remember something thatDan Berrigan, the radicalCatholic priest, said aboutDorothy Day, founder of theCatholic Worker movement. He said she lived as though the truth were true." And: "Victory is relative when you listen to the powerful. But we have a victory in our midst, because the entire world is on our side. So I say that we call for an end to the death penalty in this country, and we call for an end to the collective death penalty being meted out on the rest of the world by this criminal government."[5]
He also worked in 2000 as a producer forMichael Moore's TV seriesThe Awful Truth onBravo.[6]
Scahill became a senior producer and correspondent forDemocracy Now! and remains a frequent contributor. Scahill and hisDemocracy Now! colleagueAmy Goodman were co-recipients of the 1998George Polk Award for their radio documentary "Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship", which investigated theChevron Corporation's role in the killing of twoNigerianenvironmental activists.[7]
In 1998, Scahill traveled to Iraq forDemocracy Now! andPacifica Radio, where he reported on the impact of the economic sanctions onIraq and the "No-Fly Zone" bombings in Northern and Southern Iraq.[8] An article inAlterNet has described Jeremy Scahill as a "progressive journalist".[9]
In October 2013 Scahill joined with reportersGlenn Greenwald andLaura Poitras to establish an on-line investigative journalism publishing venture funded byeBay billionairePierre Omidyar.[10] The idea for the new media outlet came from Omidyar's "concern about press freedoms in the US and around the world."[11]The Intercept, a publication ofFirst Look Media, went live on February 10, 2014.[12] The short-term goal of the digital magazine is to publish reports about information contained in documents disclosed byEdward Snowden concerning theNSA. According to editorsGreenwald,Poitras, and Scahill, their "longer-term mission is to provide aggressive and independent adversarial journalism across a wide range of issues, from secrecy, criminal and civil justice abuses and civil liberties violations to media conduct, societal inequality and all forms of financial and political corruption."[13]
On November 30, 2013, Scahill refused to participate in a Stop the War Conference in London unless Syrian nunMother Agnes was dropped from the symposium. Mother Agnes eventually pulled out.[14] In February 2017, Scahill canceled his appearance onReal Time with Bill Maher after finding out thatMilo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to appear on the same day.[15]
Scahill criticized the US government's decision to charge WikiLeaks founderJulian Assange under theEspionage Act of 1917 for his role in the 2010 publication of a trove ofIraq War documents and diplomatic cables. Scahill tweeted: "This is about retaliation for publishing evidence ofU.S. war crimes and other crimes by the most powerful nation on Earth. It's a threat to press freedom."[16]
On May 9, 2019, the intelligence analystDaniel Everette Hale was arrested for leaking classified information to a reporter.[17] The reporter to whom Hale leaked was not explicitly named in the indictment, but the government released a list of exhibits it planned to use at trial that included a picture of Hale meeting publicly with Scahill at an event to promote Scahill's book, texts Hale sent to his friend describing meeting Scahill, and emails between Scahill and Hale months before they moved their communication to Jabber (software that allows encrypted communication).[18]
In July 2024, Scahill leftThe Intercept, along with Ryan Grim, to co-found Drop Site News.[19]
In 1999, he covered the Kosovo conflict, reporting live fromBelgrade and Kosovo itself.[20] In an article in the International Socialist Review, Scahill accused theUnited Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) of being complicit in Albanian atrocities against Serbs.[21]
In 1999, the Scahill and Goodman's documentaryDrilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship was also awarded one of the prizes of theOverseas Press Club. The keynote speaker was a major supporter of the Kosovo War,Richard Holbrooke, who, to the applause of 300 attendees, announced that the building of theRadio Television of Serbia had been bombed by NATO. Thebombing left 16 media workers dead. The only protesting voices at the ceremony were Scahill and Goodman who wanted to ask Holbrooke questions, but he refused. They then rejected the prize. In 2019 Scahill apologized to the victims' family members in the name of the US government, calling the bombing a war crime.[22][23][24]
After Slobodan Milosevic's death in 2006, Scahill accused theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of practicing "victors' justice" and being "a poor substitute for a true international court."[25]
Between 2001 and 2003, Scahill reported frequently from Baghdad forDemocracy Now! and other media outlets. As the Iraq invasion began, Scahill appeared frequently onDemocracy Now!, often co-hosting with Amy Goodman.[26]
Scahill has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq,Somalia,Yemen, the former Yugoslavia,[27] post-KatrinaLouisiana,[28] and elsewhere across the globe. Scahill is a frequent guest on many programs, appearing regularly onThe Rachel Maddow Show,[29]Real Time with Bill Maher,[2] andDemocracy Now![30] He has also appeared onABC World News,CBS Evening News,NBC Nightly News,The Daily Show,[31] CNN,The NewsHour,MSNBC,[32]Bill Moyers Journal,[33] and NPR.[34][35][36] In addition, Scahill has written forThe Times,The Sunday Telegraph, theBBC,The Indypendent,[37] theLos Angeles Times,[38]Z Magazine,[39]Socialist Worker,[40]International Socialist Review,[41]The Progressive,[42]In These Times,[43] andThe Guardian.[44]
He has been a vocal critic of private military contractors, particularlyBlackwater Worldwide, which is the subject of his book,Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.[45] The book received numerous accolades, including theAlternet Best Book of the Year Award, a spot on both the Barnes & Noble and Amazon lists of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007, and notable mention inThe New York Times.[46]
Scahill's work has sparked several Congressional investigations. In 2010, Scahill testified before the U.S.House Judiciary Committee on the United States' shadow wars in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere:
As the war rages on in Afghanistan and—despite spin to the contrary—in Iraq as well, US Special Operations Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency are engaged in parallel, covert, shadow wars that are waged in near total darkness and largely away from effective or meaningful Congressional oversight or journalistic scrutiny. The actions and consequences of these wars is seldom discussed in public or investigated by the Congress. The current US strategy can be summed up as follows: We are trying to kill our way to peace. And the killing fields are growing in number.[47]
In July 2011, Scahill revealed the existence of a CIA-run counterterrorism center at the airport inMogadishu,Somalia, and reported on a previously unknown secret prison located in the basement of the U.S.-fundedSomali National Security Agency, in which—according to a U.S. official—U.S. agents interrogated prisoners.[48]
When the public became aware of President Obama's "Kill List",[49] Scahill was frequently cited as an expert on the topic ofextrajudicial killings.[50]In 2019, he argued that Donald Trump probably represented "the best hope that we've had since 9/11 to end some of these forever wars."[51]
Scahill's first book,The New York Times bestsellerBlackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army,[52] thoroughly revised and updated to include theNisour Square massacre, was released in paperback edition in 2008.[53][54]Blackwater depicts the rise of the controversial military contracting firmBlackwater, now calledAcademi.[55]
Scahill exposed the presence of Blackwater contractors in New Orleans afterHurricane Katrina and his reporting sparked a Congressional inquiry and an internalDepartment of Homeland Security investigation.[56]
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Scahill's bookDirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield was published byNation Books on April 23, 2013.[57][58] The main premise of the book is Obama's continuation of Bush's doctrine that "the world is a battlefield" and relying on missiles and drone strikes,JSOC to carry the bulk of the covert operations andtargeted killings of suspected terrorists. Scahill expands on this theme by covering topics such as the assassination of U.S. citizens, namelyAnwar Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, and the lack of accountability of U.S. special forces, such as theGardez massacre,[59] where U.S. special forces killed two males, including the pro-U.S. local police commander, as well as three females, two of whom were pregnant. An Afghan investigation found signs of evidence tampering, such as bullets being removed from the wall where the women were shot.[60] Several family members of the victims alleged that the special forces subsequently used their knives to dig the bullets out of the bodies and cleaned the resultant wounds to purge any evidence of the U.S. raid.[61]
The book was released around the same time as a2013 American documentary directed by Richard Rowley based on a screenplay written by Scahill andDavid Riker. Scahill both produced and narrated the film.Dirty Wars premiered at the 2013Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2013 and was released in four theaters on June 7, 2013. The film was nominated for the 2014Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, ultimately losing to20 Feet from Stardom.[62]
Scahill has been an advocate for imprisoned Yemeni journalistAbdulelah Haider Shaye. Scahill's March 13, 2012 article inThe Nation states thatPresident Obama leaned onYemen to keep Shaye in jail because of his reporting on the 2009Al Ma'jalah bombings—Shaye described remnants of U.S.Tomahawk missiles, although the United States initially denied involvement.[63] Subsequent English-language reports on the issue have relied on Scahill's journalism.[64][65][66]
Scahill has been a fierce critic ofIsrael's military response in Gaza since theOctober 7 attacks. Writing forThe Intercept, Scahill argues that the October 7 attacks were a result of a 75-year campaign by Israel, of ethnic cleansing and apartheid in Gaza.[67] According to him, the primary agenda ofBenjamin Netanyahu has long been "the absolute destruction of Palestine and its people".[67]
On October 19, 2024, in a guest appearance onMSNBC with anchorAyman Mohyeldin, Scahill said that MSNBC had people on its network who promotedIsraeli propaganda.[68][69]
Scahill has won numerous awards, including the George Polk Award (twice),[70] numerous Project Censored Awards, and the Izzy Award,[71] named afterinvestigative journalistI. F. Stone. He was among the few Western reporters to gain access to theAbu Ghraib prison when Saddam Hussein was in power and his story on the emptying of that prison won a 2003 Golden Reel Award from TheNational Federation of Community Broadcasters.[72] In 2013, he was awarded theWindham–Campbell Literature Prize, one of the richest literary awards in the world.[73][74]
The indictment does not identify the reporter by name. But it says the reporter made a documentary about the U.S. military's use of drones and was a scheduled speaker at "a Washington, D.C. restaurant/bookstore" on or about April 29, 2013.
It is also true that if Israel had not engaged in a 75-year campaign of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, there would not have been an October 7
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