Matt Apuzzo

Last updated
Matt Apuzzo
Pulitzer2018-matt-apuzzo-20180530-wp.jpg
Apuzzo at the 2018 Pulitzer Prizes
Born (1978-10-20) October 20, 1978 (age 44)
Nationality American
Alma mater Colby College
Occupation Journalist

Matt Apuzzo (born October 20, [1] 1978) is an American journalist working for The New York Times . [2]

Contents

Early life

Apuzzo was born in Cumberland, Maine and attended Colby College, where he edited the school newspaper, the Colby Echo. [3]

Career

He wrote for the Waterville Morning Sentinel while in college. He then worked for The Standard-Times in New Bedford, Massachusetts before moving to the Associated Press. He reported on New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct and revealed its collaboration with the CIA to conduct surveillance in Muslim communities. He won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting with Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley. [4] In 2013, Apuzzo co-wrote a book with Adam Goldman called Enemies Within. [5]

Since 2013, he has worked for The New York Times [6] and teaches journalism at Georgetown University. [7] At the Times, Apuzzo covered the militarization of police departments and broke several stories about the Justice Department's civil rights investigations in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere. [8] [9] In April 2015, Apuzzo and his colleague Michael S. Schmidt revealed the video footage of a white police officer in North Charleston, South Carolina, shooting an unarmed black man running away from him. [10]

In July 2015, a story by Apuzzo and Michael S. Schmidt about the Hillary Clinton email controversy drew criticism from Mrs. Clinton's campaign and her supporters, including from the Times public editor Margaret Sullivan. The Washington Post media columnist Erik Wemple in April 2017 cleared Apuzzo and Schmidt of wrongdoing in connection with story, saying if anything the Times had understated the severity of how seriously the government was investigating Mrs. Clinton. [11]

Apuzzo and two other Times reporters authored a series of stories in 2016 about how American torture policies in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, had led to long lasting mental health issues for those detainees tortured by Americans. The stories were one of the first accounts of the mental health toll created by American torture policies. [12]

In June 2018, the Times announced Apuzzo had been appointed Investigative Correspondent in Brussels and would be moving from the Washington bureau to join the International Desk from August 2018. [13] In April 2022, the Times announced that Apuzzo would become its first International Investigations Editor. [2]

Subpoena over leak investigations

Apuzzo's phone records have been subpoenaed twice, under both the Obama and Trump administrations. [14] In 2013, it was revealed that the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed Apuzzo's phone records as part of a leak investigation into who provided the Associated Press information about a bomb plot foiled by the CIA. [15] It was later revealed that the Justice Department had conducted leak investigations into his stories twice before. He has been highly critical of government secrecy and the media's willingness to accept it. [16] [17]

Awards

Apuzzo has won or shared in three Pulitzer Prizes: The 2012 award for investigative reporting; the 2018 award for national reporting for coverage of Russian election interference and its connections to the Trump campaign's ties to Russia; and the 2021 prize for public service as part of the Times coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. [18] [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Woodward</span> American investigative journalist and associate editor (born 1943)

Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist. He started working for The Washington Post as a reporter in 1971 and now holds the title of associate editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting</span> American journalism award

The Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting has been awarded since 1953, under one name or another, for a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series in a U.S. news publication. It is administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Comey</span> Former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (born 1960)

James Brien Comey Jr. is an American lawyer who was the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2013 until his termination in May 2017. Comey was a registered Republican for most of his adult life; however, in 2016, he described himself as unaffiliated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Risen</span> American journalist

James Risen is an American journalist for The Intercept. He previously worked for The New York Times and before that for Los Angeles Times. He has written or co-written many articles concerning U.S. government activities and is the author or co-author of two books about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a book about the American public debate about abortion. Risen is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Susan Schmidt is an American investigative reporter with the Wall Street Journal. She is best known for her work at The Washington Post, where she worked from 1983 until leaving for the Wall Street Journal.

Eric Lichtblau is an American journalist, reporting for The New York Times in the Washington bureau, as well as the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, The New Yorker, and the CNN network's investigative news unit. He has earned two Pulitzer Prizes for his work. He received a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 with the New York Times for his reporting on warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency. He also was part of the New York Times team that won the Pulitzer in 2017 for coverage of Russia and the Trump campaign. He is the author of Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice, and The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men.

The CIA interrogation videotapes destruction occurred on November 9, 2005. The videotapes were made by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during interrogations of Al-Qaeda suspects Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2002 at a CIA black site prison in Thailand. Ninety tapes were made of Zubaydah and two of al-Nashiri. Twelve tapes depict interrogations using "enhanced interrogation techniques", a euphemism for torture. The tapes and their destruction became public knowledge in December 2007. A criminal investigation by a Department of Justice special prosecutor, John Durham, decided in 2010 to not file any criminal charges related to destroying the videotapes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Durham</span> American prosecutor (born 1950)

John Henry Durham is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut from 2018 to 2021. By April 2019, the Trump administration assigned him to investigate the origins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, and in October 2020 he was appointed special counsel for the Department of Justice on that matter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Mazzetti</span>

Mark Mazzetti is an American journalist who works for the New York Times. He is currently a Washington Investigative Correspondent for the Times.

In 2003, a secret compound, known as Strawberry Fields, was constructed near the main Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. In August 2010 reporters found that it had been constructed to hold CIA detainees classified as "high value". These were among the many men known as ghost detainees, as they were ultimately held for years for interrogation by the CIA in its secret prisons known as black sites at various places in Europe, the Mideast, and Asia, including Afghanistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loretta Lynch</span> American lawyer (born 1959)

Loretta Elizabeth Lynch is an American lawyer who served as the 83rd attorney general of the United States from 2015 to 2017. She was appointed by President Barack Obama to succeed Eric Holder and previously served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York under Presidents Bill Clinton (1999–2001), George W Bush (2001) and Obama (2010–2015). As a U.S. attorney, Lynch oversaw federal prosecutions in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael S. Schmidt</span> American journalist and author (born 1983)

Michael S. Schmidt is a two time Pulitzer prize winning American journalist, author, and correspondent for The New York Times in Washington, D.C. He covers national security and federal law enforcement, has broken several high-profile stories. He is also a national security contributor for MSNBC and NBC News.

In 2013, the United States Department of Justice, under Attorney General Eric Holder, came under scrutiny from the media and some members of Congress for subpoenaing phone records from the Associated Press (AP). Under similar justifications, a 2010 subpoena approved by Eric Holder implicated Fox News reporter, James Rosen, as a possible co-conspirator under the Espionage Act of 1917. Investigators gained access to the times of his phone calls, and two days of Rosen's emails. Stephen Jin-Woo Kim eventually pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act for communicating North Korean nuclear test plans to Rosen. These investigations provoked considerable criticism from major news organizations, and precipitated the revision of media guidelines at the Department of Justice.

Alfreda Frances Bikowsky is a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who has headed the Bin Laden Issue Station and the Global Jihad unit. Bikowsky's identity is not publicly acknowledged by the CIA, but was deduced by independent investigative journalists in 2011. In January 2014, the Washington Post named her and tied her to a pre-9/11 intelligence failure and the extraordinary rendition of Khalid El-Masri. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, released in December 2014, showed that Bikowsky was not only a key part of the torture program but also one of its chief apologists, resulting in the media's giving her the moniker "The Unidentified Queen of Torture."

During her tenure as United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton drew controversy by using a private email server for official public communications rather than using official State Department email accounts maintained on federal servers. After a years-long FBI investigation, it was determined that Clinton's server did not contain any information or emails that were clearly marked classified. Federal agencies did, however, retrospectively determine that 100 emails contained information that should have been deemed classified at the time they were sent, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails were retroactively designated confidential by the State Department.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Goldman</span> American journalist

Adam Goldman is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist. He received the award for covering the New York Police Department's spying program that monitored daily life in Muslim communities and for his coverage of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Ali Watkins is an American journalist who writes for The New York Times. 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. Watkins has worked for a number of publications, including BuzzFeed, Politico, McClatchy, The Huffington Post, and the Philadelphia Daily News.

Eileen Sullivan is an American journalist who has covered counter-terrorism and national security for The Associated Press and The New York Times. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russia investigation origins counter-narrative</span> Conspiracy theory concerning the 2016 US elections

U.S. government investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, and the links between Russian intelligence and Trump associates, started with the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation, and continued with the "Mueller investigation" which was established after President Donald Trump fired the director of the FBI James Comey,. The Mueller investigation concluded that Russian interference was "sweeping and systematic" and "violated U.S. criminal law", and indicted Russian citizens and Russian organizations. The investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign". The investigation resulted in charges against 34 individuals and 3 companies, 8 guilty pleas, and a conviction at trial. However it concluded that though the Trump campaign welcomed the Russian activities and expected to benefit from them, there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates, and that they were prevented from reaching a conclusion on whether Trump had obstructed justice by a Justice Department guideline prohibiting the federal indictment of a sitting president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2017–2018 Department of Justice metadata seizures</span> Seizure of two American congressmens personal data

The United States Department of Justice under the Trump administration acquired by a February 2018 subpoena the Apple iCloud metadata of two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, several others associated with the committee, and some of their family members. The subpoena covered 73 phone numbers and 36 email addresses since the inception of the accounts. Seizing communications information of members of Congress is extraordinarily rare. The department also subpoenaed and obtained 2017 and 2018 phone log and email metadata from news reporters for CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Apple also received and complied with February 2018 subpoenas for the iCloud accounts of White House counsel Don McGahn and his wife. Microsoft received a subpoena relating to a personal email account of a congressional staff member in 2017.

References

  1. Lippman, Daniel. "BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: NYT reporter Matt Apuzzo". POLITICO. Retrieved 2023-01-22.
  2. 1 2 "Our First International Investigations Editor". The New York Times Company. 2022-04-07. Retrieved 2022-04-11.
  3. "Apuzzo Wins Pulitzer". Colby College. 18 April 2012.
  4. Byers, Dylan (December 19, 2013). "AP's Matt Apuzzo to New York Times". Politico.
  5. Riedel, Bruce (September 10, 2013). ""Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD's Secret Spying Unit and bin-Laden's Final Plot Against America," by Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman". Lawfare Blog. Retrieved December 19, 2015.
  6. Calderone, Michael (December 19, 2013). "AP's Matt Apuzzo Joins The New York Times". Huffington Post.
  7. "Matt Apuzzo". Georgetown University.
  8. "Our First International Investigations Editor". The New York Times Company. 2022-04-07. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  9. Stolberg, Richard A. Oppel Jr , Sheryl Gay; Apuzzo, Matt (2016-08-09). "Justice Department to Release Blistering Report of Racial Bias by Baltimore Police". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2017-04-30.
  10. Schmidt, Michael S.; Apuzzo, Matt (2015-04-07). "South Carolina Officer Is Charged With Murder of Walter Scott". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2017-04-30.
  11. Wemple, Erik; Wemple, Erik (2017-04-24). "New York Times sheds new light on its own controversial Clinton coverage". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2017-04-30.
  12. "'Civilized' nation can't justify torture". miamiherald. Retrieved 2017-04-30.
  13. "Matt Apuzzo Joins the International Desk as Investigative Correspondent in Brussels". The New York Times Company. 2018-06-18. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
  14. Savage, Charlie; Benner, Katie (2021-06-03). "Trump Administration Secretly Seized Phone Records of Times Reporters". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  15. Calderone, Michael (May 13, 2013). "AP Phone Records Seized By Justice Department As War On Leaks Continues". Huffington Post.
  16. Calderone, Michael (September 3, 2013). "AP's Matt Apuzzo And Adam Goldman Crack Open Secretive Institutions, From NYPD To CIA". Huffington Post.
  17. Wheeler, Marcy (June 12, 2008). "Matt Apuzzo Pushes Back". emptywheel.net.
  18. "Our First International Investigations Editor". The New York Times Company. 2022-04-07. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  19. "Staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post". .pulitzer.org. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved February 22, 2022.