Joby Warrick's Washington Post resignation
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Joby Warrick's Washington Post resignation is John Kiriakou's account of a friend and multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist at the Washington Post leaving the paper because, in Kiriakou's telling, investigative journalism there was dead. Kiriakou describes Warrick as on the level of Woodward and Bernstein, and says he resigned two weeks before the interview.

Kiriakou attributes the decline to ownership under Jeff Bezos, saying 80% of Washington Post employees have been let go since Bezos bought the paper, a newspaper, he notes, that once brought down a president through the Watergate investigation. He says real investigative journalism has instead migrated to outlets such as ProPublica, the Brennan Center, Drop Site News, and The Grayzone.

The relationship, and why Kiriakou rates him

The acquaintance is long-standing: Warrick was one of the first reporters to interview Kiriakou, in 2007, and Kiriakou's shorthand for him is "a good, solid reporter." What he singles out is Warrick's willingness to be the sober voice in the room and tell people what they do not want to hear, and, the professional distinction Kiriakou draws most sharply, that he is "not the kind of journalist who's going to just take a CIA press release and digest it." Warrick works human sources he can use to confirm or deny what he is handed. Kiriakou credits him with speaking openly about the limits of that method too, that sources have motives of their own and a reporter will sometimes be fed information precisely because someone wants it out.

The two also crossed at an auction. The Post sent Warrick to cover the sale of Lincoln's last turd, at which Kiriakou was an unsuccessful bidder; his reaction on seeing the byline was "Joby, we can't be bidding against each other."

See also

- John Kiriakou
- Lincoln's last turd
- Bob Woodward's CIA headquarters access
