Nick Turse on Reporting on the Trump Administration's Military Conduct

The Intercept's Mission and Turse's Role

• 🎯 The Intercept is characterized by its adversarial nature and dedication to confronting power and exposing injustice.
• 💡 Nick Turse was drawn to The Intercept because of its commitment to afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted, providing a home for stories other publications wouldn't touch.
• 🚀 Turse transitioned from a quarter-century of freelance work to join The Intercept, drawn by its focus on underreported stories and conflicts the world had turned its back on.

Evolving Reporting in Unprecedented Times

• ⚡ Turse has shifted from long-form investigative pieces planned years in advance to daily coverage to meet the demands of the current administration's actions.
• ✍️ He maintains reporting rigor while adapting to write in a more immediate and impactful way, leveraging 20 years of sources to break news quickly.
• 🔍 The focus is on uncovering egregious and worrying efforts of the administration, including extrajudicial killings, troubling Pentagon policies, and the creation of global expulsion policies.

Investigative Journalism in an Era of Declining Trust

• 📈 Investigative reporting is crucial for holding power accountable by providing the time and space to lay out intricate cases and place issues in proper context.
• 🗣️ Humanizing stories involves centering on real people and their lived experiences, using their stories of heartache, loss, courage, and fortitude to make complex issues accessible.
• 🤝 Sources within the Pentagon are motivated by a care for the country and a desire to uphold the rule of law, seeing their speaking out as a continuation of their call to service.

Critical Issues Under the Trump Administration

• ⚠️ The administration employs a deliberate tactic of overwhelming with a fire hose of news, pushing boundaries on immigration, budgets, and foreign relations.
• 🚨 Turse highlights concerns about efforts to influence election processes, surge federal forces into cities, and label left-leaning organizations as potential terrorists.
• ⚖️ A significant departure is the Pentagon's classification of non-international armed conflicts and the designation of individuals on boats as "unlawful combatants," which legal experts deem patently illegal and tantamount to murder.
• 🚫 The potential for the White House to claim authority to use lethal force against anyone declared a terrorist, including domestically, represents a gross overreach of the law with no limiting principles.