James Risen

James Risen (MSJ78) was inducted into the Medill Hall of Achievement in 2015.

Risen, a best-selling author and former New York Times reporter, is senior national security correspondent for The Intercept website. Risen is also director of First Look Media’s Press Freedom Defense Fund, which is dedicated to supporting news organizations, journalists, and whistleblowers in legal fights in which a substantial public interest, freedom of the press, or related human or civil right is at stake.

While at the New York Times, Risen was a winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for uncovering the government’s secret domestic wiretapping program and was a member of the Times reporting team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for the newspaper’s coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He was also a winner of the 2006 Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting.

Risen is the author of four books: “Wrath of Angels: The American Abortion War” (Basic Books, 1998); “The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Showdown with the KGB” (Random House, 2003), “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration” (Free Press, 2006), and “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014). “State of War” and “Pay Any Price” were New York Times best-sellers.