Reporter turns down US$50,000 to set up Edward Snowden interview
Glenn Greenwald, who disclosed US surveillance, says TV interview would have been crass entertainment
Glenn Greenwald, one of two reporters to disclose the existence of a massive US National Security Agency surveillance programme, held preliminary talks with American TV networks to conduct an interview with his chief source, fugitive whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
But Greenwald said he decided not to do the interview, despite discussing a licensing fee of up to US$50,000 for landing an interview with Snowden.
I don't want to distract attention away from the NSA spying and the substance of the disclosures by refocusing attention on Snowden
An interview with Snowden would be a major coup for any news outlet, but few journalists have access to the 30-year-old former government contractor, who fled the United States to Hong Kong, and then to Russia where he was granted asylum.
Greenwald, who works for The Guardian newspaper, is one of the few journalists who conceivably could land such an interview. Snowden contacted him anonymously earlier this year, and they built a relationship that led him to disclose details of the NSA's massive and secret data-collection programme known as Prism.
Snowden also contacted Barton Gellman, who reported on the Prism programme for The Washington Post. Gellman's story was published a few minutes before Greenwald and The Guardian released their own.
Greenwald said via e-mail that he spoke to NBC, and "very preliminarily" to ABC, about a Snowden interview.