Glenn Greenwald

About Glenn Greenwald's Bias Rating

Glenn Greenwald is a news media source with an AllSides Media Bias Rating™ of Center.

What a "Center" Rating Means

Sources with an AllSides Media Bias Rating of Center either do not show much predictable media bias, display a balance of articles with left and right biases, or equally balance left and right perspectives.

Center doesn't mean better! A Center media bias rating does not necessarily mean a source is totally unbiased, neutral, perfectly reasonable, or credible, just as Left and Right don't necessarily mean extreme, wrong, unreasonable, or not credible. AllSides encourages people to read outlets across the political spectrum.

April 2021 Independent Review

The AllSides team moved Glenn Greenwald's rating from Lean Left to Center following an April 2021 independent review.

We had long struggled to rate Greenwald's bias, as he had some views on the left and some that were more often associated with the right (see Oct. 2020 independent review).

We moved Greenwald's bias rating to Center after a review by AllSides editors from the left, center, and right on April 21, 2021. Some pointed out that being critical of the establishment/elites isn't inherently left-wing; Greenwald was now a frequent guest on Fox News (though AllSides rates only online content), particularly on Tucker Carlson's show; some on the left disavowed Greenwald for tweets in which he posted an article (written by someone else) "exploring whether the disappearance of lesbian culture is due to the encouragement which masculine girls receive -- from the society, therapists, health care workers, etc. -- to identify as trans, not as lesbian women," for which he was called transphobic; Greenwald's work as of late had been critical more of left-wing media, left-wing elites, woke ideology, and other issues associated with the left than the right.

Oct. 2020 Independent Review of Glenn Greenwald's Political Views

An Oct. 2020 independent review of Greenwald's beliefs and writing led the AllSides team to conclude Greenwald has a Lean Left bias; however, his views and writing do not fit neatly into a box. We determined he tilts liberal on enough issues to warrant a Lean Left rating. Greenwald is frequently critical of both the left and right American and Brazilian (where he lives) political establishments. He has a strong bias toward freedom of speech and freedom of the press; he seems to reflect a strong moral duty to challenge authority/keep authority in check as a journalist. Not only is he critical of the political establishment, he is critical of the media establishment in the U.S.

Greenwald has previously written for Salon, The Guardian, and The Intercept, which he helped co-found.

According to a New Yorker profile on Greenwald from 2018:

"Greenwald, who didn’t vote in 2016, and who sees Bernie Sanders as the best likely candidate for 2020, later told me that, compared with current conditions, a Clinton Presidency would have been “better in some ways, and worse in other ways.” He referred to the likelihood that Clinton would have pursued military action in Syria. Trump’s election, he said, had energized public debate about “what kind of country we should be.”

Greenwald said of the Trump White House: "I think the Trump White House lies more often. I think it lies more readily. I think it lies more blatantly. Is that unique? It’s unique by a matter of degree and not by kind, and I would say that that’s true for a lot of things. One of the things I object to is when I see things that have been done for many years, or even decades, being treated as though they’re things that Trump pioneered. That’s generally when I start being more overtly concerned about the narrative being misleading." Greenwald has been highly critical of the Democrats' attempts to link Russian interference to Trump's 2016 victory, calling it a conspiracy theory.

Greenwald has criticized Israel and its governments' influence on American politics. He defended Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) when she faced criticism for tweeting "it's all about the Benjamins baby" in reference to American politicians' support for Israel. Greenwald said "we’re not allowed to talk about ... well-organized and well-financed lobby that ensures a bipartisan consensus in support of U.S. defense of Israel, that the minute that you mention that lobby, you get attacked as being anti-Semitic, which is what happened to Congresswoman Omar."

In 2016, Gleenwald wrote:

"Over the past five years, a creeping extremism has taken hold of our federal government, and it is threatening to radically alter our system of government and who we are as a nation. This extremism is neither conservative nor liberal in nature, but is instead driven by theories of unlimited presidential power that are wholly alien, and antithetical, to the core political values that have governed this country since its founding"; for, "the fact that this seizure of ever-expanding presidential power is largely justified through endless, rank fear-mongering—fear of terrorists, specifically—means that not only our system of government is radically changing, but so, too, are our national character, our national identity, and what it means to be American."

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As of May 2024, people have voted on the AllSides Media Bias Rating for Glenn Greenwald. On average, those who disagree with our rating think this source has a Lean Right bias.

As of May 2024, AllSides has low or initial confidence in our Center rating for Glenn Greenwald. If we perform more bias reviews and gather consistent data, this confidence level will increase.

Additional Information

Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. . His most recent book, “No Place to Hide,” is about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. Prior to co-founding The Intercept, Glenn’s column was featured in the Guardian and Salon. His work has received numerous awards. He previously worked partially in the porn industry.

Greenwald is perhaps best known for publishing a series of reports detailing American and British global surveillance programs, reports based on classified documents provided by Edward Snowden.

In 2019, Greenwald tweeted that he is vegan.

Greenwald is gay and lives in Rio de Janiero with his husband, a Brazilian politician.

Resignation from The Intercept and Accusations of Bias

In Oct. 2020, Gleenwald resigned from The Intercept, the publication he had co-founded, accusing it of bias and censorship in an open letter. He also accused the publication of being beholden to "mandated ideological and partisan loyalties."

"Rather than offering a venue for airing dissent, marginalized voices and unheard perspectives, [The Intercept] is rapidly becoming just another media outlet with mandated ideological and partisan loyalties, a rigid and narrow range of permitted viewpoints (ranging from establishment liberalism to soft leftism, but always anchored in ultimate support for the Democratic Party), a deep fear of offending hegemonic cultural liberalism and center-left Twitter luminaries, and an overarching need to secure the approval and admiration of the very mainstream media outlets we created The Intercept to oppose, critique and subvert."

"It is even rarer for The Intercept to publish content that would not fit very comfortably in at least a dozen or more center-left publications of similar size which pre-dated its founding, from Mother Jones to Vox and even MSNBC."

The Intercept denied the allegations.

Charges from the Brazilian Government

In January 2020, Brazilian government prosecutors charged Greenwald with "cybercrimes", alleging that Greenwald participated in cell phone hacking, the content of which was used in his stories. According to The New Yorker, Greenwald had "reported on wrongdoing in Brazil’s judicial establishment last year for the Intercept" and "has repeatedly antagonized the country’s new far-right President, Jair Bolsonaro." Greenwald responded in part by saying that people in the Brazilian government "are genuine authoritarians who don’t believe in democracy, don’t believe in basic freedoms, and don’t believe in a free press. And all they know is brute force."

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