Mark Mazzetti (born May 13, 1974) is an American journalist who works for the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''.
[
] He is currently a Washington Investigative Correspondent for the Times.
Life
Mazzetti was born in Washington, D.C. He attended
Regis High School in New York City. He graduated from
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
with a
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
in
Public Policy
Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...
and History.
Later, he earned a master's degree in history from
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
.
Career
Mazzetti is a two-time winner of The Pulitzer Prize. In 2009, he was part of a team of reporters to win the International Reporting prize for coverage of the rising violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Washington's response. In 2018, he shared the prize for National Reporting for groundbreaking coverage of the connections between Donald Trump's advisers and Russia and the widening investigation into Russia's sabotage of the 2016 presidential election. In 2008, he was a Pulitzer finalist for reporting on the C.I.A's detention and interrogation program.
In 1998, shortly after receiving a master's degree from
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, Mazzetti began reporting on national politics as a correspondent for ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
''. After leaving ''The Economist'' in 2001, Mazzetti joined the staff of ''
U.S. News & World Report'' and began reporting on defense and national security as its
Pentagon
In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°.
A pentagon may be simpl ...
correspondent. In 2004 Mazzetti joined the staff of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', and continued working with the Pentagon as a
military affairs
''The Journal of Military History'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the military history of all times and places. It is the official journal of the Society for Military History. The journal was established in 1937 and the ed ...
correspondent.
His book, "The Way of the Knife: The C.I.A., a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth," was published in 2013. It was a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into more than 10 languages. The book is an account of the secret wars waged by the C.I.A and Pentagon in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks.
In 2003 Mazzetti spent two months reporting in
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
while traveling with the
1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
In late 2007, he broke the story of the CIA's destruction of interrogation video tapes depicting torture of Al Qaeda detainees. The story launched a Justice Department investigation into the episode, and he won the
Livingston Award
The Livingston Awards at the University of Michigan are American journalism awards issued to media professionals under the age of 35 for local, national, and international reporting. They are the largest, all-media, general reporting prizes in Ame ...
for National Reporting for his work on this story.
The story about the tapes destruction also led to an investigation into the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The committee's final report, released in December 2014, found widespread abuses in the program and regular use of torture.
In addition to sharing the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2009, he won the George Polk award with colleague Dexter Filkins for coverage of the secret wars being waged in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
A 2007 article by
Joseph Palermo
Joseph A. Palermo (born 1959) is an associate professor of history at Sacramento State University, an author and a commentator.
He received his undergraduate degree in sociology and anthropology (double major) from UC Santa Cruz in 1984, a master ...
said that Mazzetti and
David Sanger were insufficiently skeptical of anonymous government and military sources in an article they co-wrote in the October 14, 2007, issue of the ''New York Times''. Shortly afterwards, American intelligence agencies confirmed the New York Times' reporting, stating publicly that the Israeli military had struck an Israeli military reactor. In May 2011, Charles Kaiser cited a story written by Mazzetti in collaboration with Helene Cooper and Peter Baker "which credulously adopted the line of former Bush administration officials who were desperately trying to convince the world that torture was the main reason that Bin Laden had been located."
The
Puntland
Puntland ( so, Puntland, ar, أرض البنط, it, Terra di Punt or ''Paese di Punt''), officially the Puntland State of Somalia ( so, Dowlad Goboleedka Puntland ee Soomaaliya, ar, ولاية أرض البنط الصومالية), is a F ...
Government (Somalia) criticized a piece by Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt that portrayed the
Puntland Maritime Police Force
The Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF) is a security force based in Puntland, an autonomous region in northeastern Somalia. As of March 2012, the PMPF had around 500 personnel. The force is eventually expected to comprise 10,000 personnel.
Ac ...
(PMPF) as a "private army" that was "abandoned" by its major donors.
The article exposed how mercenaries hired by
Erik Prince
Erik Dean Prince (born June 6, 1969) is an American businessman, former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, and the founder of the private military company Blackwater. He served as Blackwater's CEO until 2009 and as its chairman until its sale to a group ...
, the former head of Blackwater, training Somalis to combat piracy by the abandoned the program. Puntland officials clarified that the PMPF still is "part and parcel of Puntland Government’s security forces" and that they still receive the financial support from their backers. They also criticized the authors for not acknowledging any of the PMPF's success and for neglecting to contact any Puntland Government officials to comment on the story.
In 2011, he furnished the pre-publication text of an opinion column written by
Maureen Dowd
Maureen Brigid Dowd (; born January 14, 1952) is an American columnist for ''The New York Times'' and an author.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, Dowd worked for ''The Washington Star'' and ''Time'', writing news, sports and feature articles. ...
concerning the making of the movie "
Zero Dark Thirty
''Zero Dark Thirty'' is a 2012 American thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. The film dramatizes the nearly decade-long international manhunt for Osama bin Laden, leader of terrorist network Al-Qaeda, after the S ...
" to CIA spokesperson
Marie Harf
Marie Elizabeth Harf (born June 15, 1981) is a liberal political commentator for the Fox News Channel and former deputy campaign manager for policy and communications for the Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) presidential campaign. She served as the S ...
for review. Dowd had reportedly asked Mazzetti to
fact-check a detail in the column for her. Times managing editor
Dean Baquet
Dean P. Baquet (; born September 21, 1956) is an American journalist. He served as the executive editor of ''The New York Times'' from May 2014 to June 2022. Between 2011 and 2014 Baquet was managing editor under the previous executive editor Ji ...
dismissed the incident as "much ado about nothing," but the ''Times public editor expressed strong disapproval of Mazzetti's actions.
In 2016, he was part of a team of reporters who won the George Polk Award for an investigation into operations by Navy SEALs and for a lengthy examination of the operations of SEAL Team 6.
In December 2016, Mazzetti was named Washington Investigations editor, leading a team of reporters to look into all parts of the government and Washington.
Personal life
On May 30, 2010, Mazzetti and Lindsay Friedman were married in
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Downto ...
. They have two children.
Awards
*In 2018, Mazzetti shared a Pulitzer Prize for deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign.
*In 2009 Mazzetti shared a 2009
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
for international reporting with
Jane Perlez Jane Perlez is a long time foreign correspondent for ''The New York Times''. She served as Beijing Bureau Chief in China until 2019, where she wrote about China's role in the world, and the competition between the United States and China, particula ...
,
Eric P. Schmitt and
Pir Zubair Shah
*In 2008 Mazzetti received the Livingston award for national reporting, for an exposé revealing the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
's destruction of controversial video tapes which exposed the United States' interrogation tactics for
Al Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...
detainees
*In 2006 Mazzetti received the Gerald R. Ford Prize
for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense
Bibliography
Books
*
Book reviews
References
External links
New York Times Index of Mark Mazzetti Articles*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mazzetti, Mark
American male journalists
Living people
The New York Times writers
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
The New York Times Pulitzer Prize winners
1974 births
Regis High School (New York City) alumni
Duke University Trinity College of Arts and Sciences alumni
Alumni of the University of Oxford
The Atlantic (magazine) people
The Economist people
Los Angeles Times people
Livingston Award winners for National Reporting
Sanford School of Public Policy alumni