Associated Press reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman — who won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting on Monday — started building a body of reporting on the intelligence community in Washington more than a year ago. But the AP’s senior managing editor for U.S. news, Mike Oreskes — who helped edited the series — told TPM they kept getting tips about the New York Police Department’s work with the CIA. They found enough sources to detail the NYPD’s “tremendous” intelligence-gathering operation — an effort larger than anything led in the U.S. They assembled a story based entirely on law enforcement sources, who described the programs. The AP ran a first story last August.
“After that story ran, we began to get more tips and more information,” Oreskes said. And more documents. They never had a plan to keep the story going for months. Eventually, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley — who shared in the AP’s Pulitzer win — were brought on to help report the series. The reporting detailed the police department’s extensive surveillance of Muslim neighborhoods and places of worship.
The reporting addresses an important question, Oreskes said: “Where should we draw the line between security and liberty?” The AP doesn’t have the answer, but “New Yorkers know more about what’s happening in their own city thanks to these reporters,” he said. “Democracy doesn’t function without information.”
“The most important technology in journalism is shoe leather,” Oreskes added.
[Pictured from left are: Chris Hawley, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Matt Apuzzo. Image courtesy of the AP.]
