Matthew Rosenberg

Matthew Rosenberg
Rosenberg at the 2018 Pulitzer Prizes

Matthew Rosenberg (born August 2, 1974) is a Pulitzer-Prize winning American journalist who covers national security issues for The New York Times. He previously spent 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and was expelled from Afghanistan in August 2014 on the orders of President Hamid Karzai,[1] the first expulsion of a Western journalist from Afghanistan since the Taliban ruled the country.

Early life

Rosenberg was born in New York City. He holds a bachelor's degree from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.[2]

Career

Rosenberg began his reporting career at The Associated Press, and served as a foreign correspondent for the news agency in South Asia, the Middle East, East Africa and the Caribbean.[3]

In 2007, Rosenberg joined The Wall Street Journal. There, he interviewed Sirajuddin Haqqani,[4] the leader of what is considered one of Afghanistan’s most potent insurgent factions, and uncovered the massive amount of cash that flows daily through Kabul’s airport, prompting the temporary suspension of $3.9 billion in American aid to Afghanistan.[5][6] He also was part of the Journal team that covered the 2008 attack on Mumbai.[7]

Rosenberg joined The New York Times in 2011 to cover Afghanistan and Pakistan. His stories there included one of the few detailed accounts of an attack by Afghan soldiers on their American allies,[8] and an investigative report that revealed how the Central Intelligence Agency had delivered bags of cash to the offices of Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, for more than a decade to finance a slush fund for the Afghan leader.[9] He also christened Afghanistan’s first international boxing match "The Squabble in Kabul."[10]

Rosenberg currently covers national security and intelligence for the Times from Washington. He has been one of the main reporters at the paper covering the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election, and whether any associates of President Trump sought to collude with the Russian effort. He was also the lead reporter on the Times investigation into Cambridge Analytica, the Trump-linked political data firm that harvested personal data from more than 50 million Facebook profiles.[11]

Awards

Rosenberg was part of a team of Times reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2018 for reporting on Donald Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia.[12] He has also twice won the George Polk Award,[13][14] and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2016.[15]

Expulsion and Espionage accusations

In August 2014, Rosenberg was barred from leaving Afghanistan and interrogated by the country’s attorney general after writing a story about how senior Afghan security officials were considering whether to stage what would, in essence, amount to a coup because of a mounting political crisis.[16][17]

The following day, the travel ban was abruptly reversed, and Rosenberg was ordered to leave Afghanistan within 24 hours. He departed Afghanistan on August 21, in compliance with the government order. Defending the decision to order out Rosenberg, a government statement called his story "an act of espionage", and Aimal Faizi, a spokesman for President Karzai, said the expulsion had been ordered at "the highest levels."[18]

It was not the first time that Rosenberg was falsely accused of spying. On November 5, 2009, The Nation newspaper in Pakistan printed a front page story that accused Rosenberg of being a spy. The story claimed that Rosenberg worked for the CIA, the U.S. security contractor formerly known as Blackwater and had ties to Israeli intelligence."[19] Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson wrote to the editor of The Nation, Shireen Mazari, to protest the false story about Rosenberg soon after the article appeared.[20] The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl, kidnapped and killed in 2002 in Pakistan, was labelled a Jewish spy in a similar manner by some sections of Pakistani media before his death. Twenty-one editors from the world's major international news organizations also signed a letter of protest, criticizing the unsubstantiated article for compromising Rosenberg's security.[21]

Personal life

Rosenberg is currently based in Washington, DC.[22]

References

  1. ↑ “Calling Article ‘Divisive,’ Afghanistan Orders Expulsion of Times Correspondent". The New York Times, 20 August 2014
  2. ↑
  3. ↑
  4. ↑ "New Wave of Warlords Bedevils U.S.". The Wall Street Journal, 20 January 2010
  5. ↑ "Corruption Suspected in Airlift of Billions in Cash From Kabul". The Wall Street Journal 28 June 2010
  6. ↑ "Afghan Aid on Hold as Corruption Is Probed". The Wall Street Journal, 29 June 2010
  7. ↑ "India Security Faulted as Survivors Tell of Terror". The Wall Street Journal 1 December 2008
  8. ↑ "As Trained Afghans Turn Enemy, a U.S.-Led Imperative Is in Peril"
  9. ↑ "With Bags of Cash, C.I.A. Seeks Influence in Afghanistan"
  10. ↑ "In This Corner, a Much-Needed Distraction" The New York Times, 31 October 2012
  11. ↑ "How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions" The New York Times, 17 March 2018
  12. ↑ "Staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post"
  13. ↑ "LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY (LIU) ANNOUNCES 69th ANNUAL GEORGE POLK AWARDS IN JOURNALISM"
  14. ↑ "2015 George Polk Award Winners"
  15. ↑ "Finalist: The New York Times Staff"
  16. ↑ "Afghan Officials Interrogate a Times Correspondent". The New York Times, 19 August 2014
  17. ↑ "Amid Election Impasse, Calls in Afghanistan for an Interim Government". The New York Times, 18 August 2014
  18. ↑ "Afghanistan Defends Expulsion of a Times Reporter". The New York Times, 21 August 2015
  19. ↑ "Journalists as spies in FATA?". The Nation, 5 November 2009
  20. ↑ "Letter from WSJ to Mazari", "Committee to Protect Journalists", 6 November 2009
  21. ↑ "Letter about The Nation article" "Committee to Protect Journalists", 16 November 2009
  22. ↑
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