Three-time Pulitzer Prize Winner's Work Has Moved to Advocacy
In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Barton Gellman '82 began working on a series of articles in The Atlantic magazine about threats to U.S. democracy. His reporting prompted a reevaluation of his self-image. A stalwart believer in the essential power of information to catalyze debate and hold the powerful to account, he encountered a world of lies, distortion, and misinformation that he felt overwhelmed the tools of his trade.
"The problem, of course, is that we don't have a shared basis of facts," Gellman said. "People are getting their news from their tribes. There are a lot of people inclined to simply not believe what they read because it doesn't conform to their priors. We've also never had a president who has lied so routinely and so promiscuously. Journalism doesn't have a great answer for that."
Across his career, journalism has served as a great leveler of power. Through several presidential administrations, Gellman has disclosed explosive government secrets that rattled the halls of power in Washington, D.C. His reporting inspired greater scrutiny of the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney's outsized political power, and the American surveillance state exposed by Edward Snowden — each of which earned him and the reporting teams he led a Pulitzer Prize.
Two days after President Donald Trump was sworn in for a second time, Gellman announced he was stepping down from his formal role as a journalist and joining the leadership team of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law as a senior advisor. The transition marked a shift in Gellman's career, aligning his journalistic principles with direct advocacy. His charge has been to work with the organization’s experts to respond to abuses of power and the assault on democratic institutions.
"I feel like my professional mission has been to get at the truth and hold powerful people accountable for how they use that power and to uphold the rule of law and democracy, but I was starting to feel like a spectator," he said. "I felt like maybe it was time to get onto the field."
Gellman believes the move positioned him to use his skills to counter in a more direct way what he sees as a "genuine short-term threat to our constitutional order." His research at the Brennan Center has aimed to raise awareness and motivate action against authoritarian tactics and election interference. He also continues to publish information for a general readership; his byline has recently appeared in The Atlantic and The Washington Post, where he worked for two decades at the start of his career before returning in 2013 to publish reports on top-secret documents provided to him by Snowden.
In his 2020 book, Dark Mirror, Gellman gives a full account of the story and implications of Snowden's leak — arguably the biggest scoop since the Nixon era. The book also sheds light on the personal repercussions Gellman faced for publishing government secrets. Foreign governments targeted his personal devices. People he had known for years began avoiding him. Others wished aloud that his actions would come back to bite him, some going so far as to label him a traitor to his country.
Gellman's work often puts him at odds with individuals across various levels of authority, from presidents and vice presidents to spy chiefs and four-star generals, extending down to the rank-and-file and his peers. His 2008 book, Angler, which scrutinized Cheney's hidden influence on national security policy, drew rebuke from the White House. Despite facing backlash time and again, Gellman said he does not relish personal conflict.
"It's much more something that I've had to overcome and learn to live with," he said. "I'm not spoiling for a fight, but after all of these years, I'm still always a bit shocked and personally offended when people lie. Not that I'm naive, but it amazes me that people will lie to your face. I want to fight back against that."
Gellman's fight against authority began at George Washington High School in Philadelphia when, as editor of his school newspaper, he published a story on teenage pregnancy despite objections from Principal Carol Wacker. She "seized all of the newspapers and literally burned them all in the school furnace and fired me as editor," Gellman said.
Rather than back down, he sued, and ultimately won a decision in Gellman v. Wacker that recognized the student newspaper's constitutional right to publish. Gellman's dogged fight against authority and intimidation would echo throughout his career.
"I knew I was making an enemy of the principal. I knew I was taking a risk," he said, "but this episode forced me to decide whether I really cared, and it forced me to really commit myself. After that, it was clear to me that I was going to be a journalist."
As an undergraduate at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Gellman served as editor-in-chief of The Daily Princetonian and was a member of the Charter Club, an on-campus private club for Princeton undergraduates and alumni. He also found what he believed to be the perfect marriage between academic inquiry and real-world application.
"My admission to Princeton was some of the greatest good fortune I ever had," said Gellman, who has returned to Princeton as a visiting lecturer, author-in-residence, and visiting research collaborator. "I loved my years there. I had amazing professors and learned an enormous amount. I made lifelong friends. Working at the newspaper was very important to me."
Now having reached retirement age, Gellman continues to look ahead, whether as a formal journalist or as a citizen pursuing truth.
"I have always thought that journalism — and truth in general — is a force for good and potentially for social change," he said. "I hope I've brought more openness to more subjects, and sometimes that openness has brought more attention to problems than they otherwise would have gotten."