Ali Watkins | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 27, 1991 [1] [2] |
| Alma mater | Temple University |
| Occupation | Journalist |
Ali Watkins [3] (born 27 October 1991) is an American journalist who writes for The New York Times . [4] Along with two colleagues, she was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for a body of work consisting 10 articles spanning from March 3, 2014, to July 14, 2014. [5] [6] Watkins has worked for a number of publications, including BuzzFeed , Politico, McClatchy, [7] The Huffington Post, [8] and the Philadelphia Daily News . [9]
Since 2023, Watkins has worked as a reporter for the breaking and trending news operation of the New York Times in Europe, based in London. [10]
Watkins was born and raised in Berks County, Pennsylvania and attended Fleetwood High School in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania. [11] She is a graduate of Temple University, where she was a news editor for The Temple News . [12]
In 2014, while she was still a senior in college, Watkins broke a national story about the Central Intelligence Agency monitoring United States Senate computers while the Senate Intelligence Committee was preparing a report on the CIA's detention and interrogation program. [13] [14] For their work on the story, Watkins and two other journalists were named as finalists for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting. [5] Watkins' scoop was at the core of the 2019 movie The Report , but her role was "elided." [15]
Watkins' career progression has been characterized as "meteoric" by The Times of London [16] and "stunning" by The Washington Post , [17] and she has been called a "hotshot" by Fox News. [18] In April 2017, in what The New York Times called "a scoop that other news organizations scrambled to match" and The Washington Post said was a "big story," Watkins broke a story about the 2013 meetings between CIA asset Carter Page and a Russian spy. [19] [20]
For several years, Watkins' beat was the Senate Intelligence Committee. At The New York Times, where she was hired in December 2017, [19] Watkins covered national security [21] and law-enforcement agencies from its Washington, D.C. bureau until July 2018. [22]
In July 2018, the Times reassigned Watkins to the New York office, [23] [24] where she covers crime and law enforcement in New York City at the Times Metro desk. [25] [26] The Times explained the reasons for her reassignment: "We are troubled by Ali's conduct, particularly while she was employed by other news organizations [...] For a reporter to have an intimate relationship with someone he or she covers is unacceptable." [27] Watkins relocated to New York. [28]
From December 2013 to December 2017, Watkins was in a romantic relationship with the former head of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee, James A. Wolfe. [29] [30] [31] The FBI opened an investigation into Wolfe after an April 2017 article by Watkins described contacts between Russian spies and Donald Trump policy adviser Carter Page, who had not been publicly identified in relation to those contacts and who was working for the CIA at the time of the meetings. [32] [33] [34] On October 15, 2018, Wolfe pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI about his relationship with Watkins. [35] [33] Prosecutors alleged that Wolfe leaked to Watkins and three other reporters. [36] Watkins denied that Wolfe ever provided her classified information. [37] Watkins disclosed the relationship to her employers BuzzFeed News, The New York Times, [38] [39] and Politico; [40] however, McClatchy editors said they were ignorant of the relationship while Watkins was an intern and employee from mid-2013 through 2014. [41] Following the Wolfe relationship, Watkins dated another Senate Intelligence Committee staff member, which Politico, her employer at the time, has said she failed to disclose. [42]
Former New York Times editor Jill Abramson said “I hate the whole situation more than I can say,” because she had spent her whole career trying to combat the notion that successful female journalists sleep with their sources. [43] The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the case "bears a strong resemblance to the television drama House of Cards," of which it said Watkins was a fan. [44] In 2019, Erik Wemple of The Washington Post compared Watkins to Amanda Macias, [45] as did Stephen L. Miller of The Spectator . [46]
In 2017, Jeffrey Rambo, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent working for the National Targeting Center, investigated Watkins, other journalists including Martha Mendoza, and NGOs while on an assignment to combat forced labor in the Congo. The operation was called "Whistle Pig" and in addition to its own database trawling [47] it got the CBP’s Counter Network Division to provide information about Watkins' mother and brother and links to their public profiles, as well as details of Watkins’ domestic and international travel. Rambo met Watkins under the fictitious name Jack Bentley, but Watkins obtained his real name from a credit card receipt. Watkins perceived Rambo's approach as a threat. [48]
In 2021, Watkins said: “I’m deeply troubled at the lengths CBP and DHS personnel apparently went to try and identify journalistic sources and dig into my personal life.” [49] A few days later, CBP launched an investigation. [50]
BIRTHDAYS: [...] NYT's Ali Watkins
For timely coverage of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA torture, demonstrating initiative and perseverance in overcoming government efforts to hide the details.
The movie, here, elides the fact that reporter who actually broke this story was Ali Watkins — then a reporter at McClatchy
Ms. Watkins scored a scoop that other news organizations scrambled to match
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Ali Watkins, who covered national security for the Times, was given a new assignment in 2018 after she disclosed that she had had a romantic relationship with a Senate Intelligence Committee staffer with access to sensitive intelligence data.
Ali Watkins, the New York Times reporter ensnared in the case, was reassigned from her job as a national security reporter in Washington, D.C., to a new position in New York City after it was revealed in the indictment that she'd had a yearslong relationship with Mr. Wolfe [...] the relationship still constituted a breach of ethics, the paper's top editor concluded.
Watkins would be reassigned to a position in New York "for a fresh start," and that "she will be closely supervised and have a senior mentor."
Ali Watkins is a reporter on Metro desk at The New York Times, where she covers crime and law enforcement in New York City.
The Times announced on Tuesday that Watkins will relocate to New York after an internal review of her romantic history with potential sources
Wolfe carried on a romantic relationship with Watkins while she covered the committee for several publications
after being confronted with photographs of himself and Watkins, he acknowledged having a personal relationship with her for several years
court documents show he briefed Watkins and other reporters about the subpoena.
In the fall, Ms. Watkins started dating a different staff member from the committee. She told others that she had informed a Politico editor who did not object. But Mr. Dayspring, the Politico spokesman, said: "Politico editors were not made aware of this relationship."
As a woman journalist who spent her career trying to puncture the notion that all of us sleep with our sources and that's how we get stories," former Times executive editor Jill Abramson told me, "I hate the whole situation more than I can say."
The case bears a strong resemblance to the television drama House of Cards, of which Watkins confessed to be a fan in 2013. "I wanted to be Zoe Barnes ... until episode 4. Sleeping with your source ... #badlifechoice @HouseofCards."
differentiates this investigation from [...] the 2018 case involving New York Times reporter Ali Watkins
Watkins and Macias are still employed by the Times and CNBC. Not only does it appear the practice of sleeping with sources for information is more than a mere trope, it seems it's something not punished by newsrooms
email addresses, phone numbers and photos from passport applications and checking that information through numerous sensitive government databases, including the terrorism watchlist
a Customs and Border Protection official reportedly confronted Watkins in person about her relationship with Wolfe and asked for her help in exposing leakers—an approach that Watkins perceived as a threat
CBP's internal probe was prompted by Yahoo News' reporting earlier this month on Operation Whistle Pig, a leak investigation targeting reporter Ali Watkins