He may or may not have some contractual guarantee of independence, but his own statement of the situation indicates that he and his cofounders deliberately chose not to have the authority and responsibility that goes with running the show but to leave that to others so that they could keep being reporters.
If you don't think Bezos influences what WaPo writes, or that Murdoch influences what Fox writes, indirectly or directly, you're not looking hard enough.
For example, "Washington Post Ran 16 Negative Stories on Bernie Sanders in 16 Hours": https://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-storie...
It's like being the trash-man or cleaning the sewers of the information pipes. No one wants to do it. And of the few that do it have most interests and publish lies or predigested material spoon fed to them by their boss.
> His submissions aren't treated specially. It's not his mouthpiece.
These two statements are contradictory.
I am saying that while he is in a superior position at an organizational level, and thus has the authority to seize any responsibility he would like, he is noble for respecting the responsibilities he has delegated to his editors and not doing so.
He quit rather than allow them to perform those responsibilities. That's not respect.
I think they got it right when they set up the intercept. A journalist without an editor is hard to distinguish from a blogger. Part of the editors job is to say no. Sometimes, "not yet, this isn't ready". Sometimes "no, this isn't good enough". I suppose sometimes also "no, we aren't that publication" which is more problematic.
You can never really be your own editor.
This reads as though you're implying The Intercept existed independently of Greenwald. They didn't, he co-founded The Intercept. He ought to (and I imagine, he does) have seniority on any editor.
I think it speaks volumes about him as a journalist and his journalistic integrity that he setup The Intercept as an outlet where he and his co-founders don't rule with iron fists. His submissions aren't treated specially. It's not his mouthpiece.