Best of Slow Journalism: The Snowden Saga
Photo by: Vincent Yu/AP/Press Association Images
When Edward Snowden landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport he did not intend to stay for long. The plan was to catch a flight to Havana, then move on to Quito. Ecuador had been Julian Assange’s suggestion – he had allegedly liaised with the UK-based Ecuadorean consul to get a ‘safe passage’ document for Snowden.
But Snowden never got further than Russia. Last week, it was reported he received a three-year residence permit after his one-year asylum ran out on 1st August.
How did he get stuck in Sheremetyevo? In The Snowden Saga: A Shadowland of Secrets and Light, Suzanna Andrews, Bryan Burrough and Sarah Ellison reconstruct the story of “the most important whistle-blower of modern times”.
The article, published in Vanity Fair‘s May edition, describes how a young man with no degree became a contractor for the US National Security Agency; how he got disillusioned by the agency’s surveillance programme and how he eventually started plotting to blow the lid off the operation.
At 19,863 words, The Snowden Saga is a hefty read (it will take you about an hour and 19 minutes by our reckoning). But if you have a morning off this weekend, we can highly recommend this very detailed piece of slow journalism, which reads like a spy novel.
The article is available online here.
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