10 March 2014

John Cook Eyeball

http://cryptome.org/2014/03/gellman-sxsw.htm

How has the NSA surveillance story stayed live?

Barton Gellman: "Snowden paid very careful attention to what had happened to other whistleblowers that hadn't had a long-term impact, and was careful to produce the documents... If Snowden had asked me 6-8 months later [if this story and still been live] but he has got to have exceed every plausible estimation about impact. It's because he didn't realise the documents all at once."

Cryptome strongly disagrees with Barton Gellman and, according to Gellman and Greenwald, allegedly the view of Snowden, on releasing only a few documents out of the thousands being withheld. This paternalism toward the public self-deputizes the document holders as de facto government officials and the elective secretkeeping supports what the spy agencies do to deliberately keep the public in the dark. The vaunted debate remains restricted to a tiny few with access to the documents, all of them exploiting their withholding for commercial purposes. This is an inexcusable travesty based on the special privileges of journalists working in concert with officials.

Cryptome, 21 January 2014: This is an FOI request to Snowden, Greenwald, Poitras, Gellman, NY Times, for full release of Snowden's de facto declassified USG documents. Send to: Cryptome, 251 West 89th Street, New York, NY 10024. Cost of digital reproduction on USBs will be paid. Public key for encrypting <cryptome[at]earthlink.net>: Fingerprint=5D02 335F 26A1 BD73 BFE3 F519 3755 7319 F9FC 4719

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/business/media/first-look-media-adds-editor-of-gawker.html

First Look Media Adds Editor of Gawker

First Look Media, the online news venture backed by the technology billionaire Pierre M. Omidyar, is adding John Cook, the editor of Gawker, to its growing stable of journalists, the publication announced on Monday.

The project became public in October with the news that Mr. Omidyar would initially invest $250 million and was bringing in the national security reporters Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill. In December, Mr. Omidyar’s organization said he had already made “an infusion of $50 million.”

Mr. Cook will become the editor in chief of The Intercept, a digital magazine introduced in February and currently edited by Mr. Greenwald, Mr. Scahill and Ms. Poitras. ...

Mr. Cook’s hiring is the latest in a series of notable additions to First Look’s staff, including the Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi, who will be running his own digital magazine.

Like Mr. Taibbi, who has built a reputation as a brash and determined critic of Wall Street, Mr. Cook has enjoyed sparring directly with the subjects of his reporting, particularly Roger Ailes and Fox News. Mr. Cook shepherded the “Fox mole,” whose behind-the-scenes dispatches from inside the network in 2012 were popular on Gawker. (The mole was revealed to be an associate producer on “The O’Reilly Factor,” and was promptly fired.)

“We are trying to build an operation that takes risks,” said Mr. Cook of his and Mr. Taibbi’s hirings.

“To find stories that pick fights and pick the right fights. The model is to be adversarial and fierce and aggressive — and yes, that is on purpose.”

Related:

http://cryptome.org/2014/03/cook-smear.pdf

http://cryptome.info/radar-spy.htm

John Cook Eyeball

Allison Benedikt and John Cook http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/john-and-allison.jpg

https://twitter.com/johnjcook https://twitter.com/abenedikt

http://www.whitepages.com/name/John-J-Cook/Brooklyn-NY/4kpfi68 http://www.whitepages.com/name/Allison-L-Benedikt/Brooklyn-NY/4kpfi4d

Cook and Benedikt Boogie http://wink.com/p/Allison-Benedikt-p:g1eaqqn7cant6

Intelius.com "Has worked at Nor Cal Moving Services" as undercover snitch. Benedikt is Slate editor.