The Intercept is a left-wing, online newsroom that has been in business for a decade. It started in 2014 when its founders broke the story of Edward Snowden’s leaked government surveillance files, which generated significant interest and vocal criticism in the areas of government monitoring and individual privacy.
In more recent times, much of The Intercept’s focus has been on the far left’s criticism of President Joe Biden and, particularly since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, serving as a hub for pro-Palestinian messaging and news.
According to an article on the news website Semafor last week, The Intercept is running out of money. If it continues losing what is reported to be roughly $300,000 per month, projections indicate that it will run out of cash in about a year. Two months ago, The Intercept laid off 16 staff members, which amounted to one-third of its employees.
The Intercept prides itself on being a radical, anti-establishment source of news. There was a time when that approach attracted significant donations from liberal donors. But more recently, The Intercept sought to expand its influence by aggressively attacking big-money liberal donors who backed more moderate candidates.
In response, many major philanthropic targets of The Intercept balked at donating, as many mainstream Democrats became reluctant to support The Intercept’s aggressive attacks on moderate Democrats.
Then came Oct. 7. The Intercept embraced the Palestinian cause with a vengeance. With what appears to be a single-minded purpose that is fed by an ever-expanding readership for its material, The Intercept has developed and distributed daily, aggressively anti-Israel coverage.
It has criticized the Biden administration for its response to the Gaza war, attacked AIPAC for its promotion of a pro-Israel agenda and circulated daily reports of mounting humanitarian challenges in Gaza without context or reference to what Hamas did to prompt Israel’s response and without meaningful challenge to the victimization of the civilian population in Gaza by Hamas itself.
The Intercept has attracted attention for breaking stories about American diplomatic cables warning of a “catastrophic” Israeli invasion of Rafah, pro-Palestinian activities and related tensions on campuses, infighting in the philanthropic world over the war in Gaza and the expanded societal reach of disagreement over Israeli-Palestinian affairs, particularly among young voters.
In the process, The Intercept has picked fights with major media outlets like The New York Times and become the platform of choice for many harsh and rabid
anti-Israel voices.
According to Semafor, internal disagreements within The Intercept’s leadership, along with an inability to attract major donors and the funding necessary to sustain the outlet’s aggressive political agenda, have forced resignations, staff firings and internal squabbles among remaining personnel.
While we support the full and free expression of ideas on all sides of issues and recognize that one’s views will always influence the tenor and substance of a presentation, we don’t support blind adherence to positions, views or policies simply because they are left or right, nor do we support approaches that are intentionally destructive.
There are nasty publications on the far right that rival the bias and aggressiveness of The Intercept on the far left. We hope they all fail.