1. Spencer Ackerman won a 2012 National Magazine Award for reporting on biased FBI training materials and shared in a 2014 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the 2013 global surveillance disclosures.
19 Facts About Spencer Ackerman
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Spencer Ackerman graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1998 and Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy.
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Spencer Ackerman worked for the New York Press, a free alternative weekly.
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Spencer Ackerman worked at The New Republic until 2006, when he started a blog titled Too Hot for TNR and was fired over what he described as irreconcilable ideological differences.
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Spencer Ackerman next began writing for The American Prospect as well as Talking Points Memo.
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In December 2007, Spencer Ackerman joined The Washington Independent as a senior fellow covering national security and foreign policy.
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Spencer Ackerman joined Wired magazine's Danger Room in June 2010, a national security blog.
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Spencer Ackerman's comments were made while writing for The Washington Independent.
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Spencer Ackerman left Firedoglake in December 2010 to host the Attackerman blog independently.
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In 2007, Ackerman wrote a freelance opinion piece in the Comment is free column for British newspaper The Guardian, wherein he compared then US president George W Bush to the satirical character of Alan Patridge, played by British comedian Steve Coogan.
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Spencer Ackerman provided input and observations regarding the accuracy of the US characters to the sentiments and characterisation of staffers employed in at the time.
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In June 2013, Spencer Ackerman joined The Guardian as a national security editor, initially at their Washington bureau before relocating back to New York.
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Spencer Ackerman contributed to several stories on the NSA's surveillance programs based on these leaks, leading to The Guardian winning the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
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Alongside his colleague Zach Stafford, Spencer Ackerman was a 2016 finalist for the Online News Association's Online Journalism Awards for their reporting on a previously little-known detention facility run by the Chicago Police known as Homan Square.
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The investigation began when Spencer Ackerman profiled the US military's employment of Richard Zuley, a Chicago Police investigator, to develop interrogation techniques on detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
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Spencer Ackerman joined The Daily Beast as a senior national security correspondent in May 2017, reuniting with his former editor from Wired, Noah Shachtman.
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In 2021, Spencer Ackerman stepped down at The Daily Beast and launched Forever Wars, a Substack newsletter focused on international politics through a socialist lens, critiquing American militarism and exceptionalism.
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In 2019, Spencer Ackerman co-hosted with Laura Hudson, the Citadel Dropouts, a Wired podcast about the final season of Game of Thrones.
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In 2023, Spencer Ackerman co-wrote with Evan Narcisse the DC Comics mini-series, Waller vs Wildstorm, under the DC Black Label imprint.