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The Intercept Co-Founder & Oscar Winner Laura Poitras Says She Was Fired by First Look Media

HeadlineJan 15, 2021

The Academy Award-winning filmmaker and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Laura Poitras published an open letter Thursday saying she had been fired in November from her job at First Look Media, where she co-founded The Intercept with Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill. She wrote, “My termination came two months after I spoke to the press about The Intercept’s failure to protect whistleblower Reality Winner and the cover-up and lack of accountability that followed.” Winner is a former National Security Agency linguist who is now serving a five-year prison sentence for leaking documents to The Intercept about Russian meddling in the 2016 elections. First Look disputed Poitras’s account, saying her contract was not renewed because “she has not been active in any capacity with our company for more than two years.” This comes as Reality Winner’s mother is leading a campaign to push President Trump or President-elect Joe Biden to pardon her.

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