Adam Entous

I am a Washington-based investigative reporter for The New York Times, specializing in narrative deep dives on national security and intelligence matters.

What I Cover

I am interested in the world of espionage, and in stories that reveal the true nature of relationships between individuals, institutions and states. These are often hidden away and hard to get at.

My Background

As a wise editor once told me, never fight chronology.

I was born in Montreal, grew up in Los Angeles and attended the University of California, Irvine, where I got my start in journalism working at the school newspaper and as a campus correspondent for The Times.

After graduating from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, I joined Reuters. While working there, I covered the bond markets, Congress, international trade, the White House and the Pentagon. In 2006, Reuters sent me to Jerusalem as a correspondent, and I spent the next three-and-a-half years covering Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

After I returned to Washington, I moved from Reuters to The Wall Street Journal to cover the Pentagon, as well as the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies. While there, I began writing long-form narratives about intelligence matters. One of them, about an American diplomat who was wrongly accused of being a spy for Pakistan, was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in feature writing.

In 2016, I moved from The Journal to The Washington Post, and I was part of a team there that won a Pulitzer for national reporting for stories on interference by Russia in that year’s presidential election.

In 2018, I became a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, where I wrote about the secret history of Israel’s relationships in the Gulf, the diplomatic failure in Afghanistan, and assassinations in Damascus and Baghdad. I also profiled Hunter Biden and Fiona Hill. My final New Yorker story uncovered long-lost secrets about President Biden’s father and family.

In 2022, I joined the Washington bureau of The Times as an investigative correspondent, and the following year, I was part of a team that won a Pulitzer for international reporting for an investigation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Journalistic Ethics

As a Times journalist, I adhere to the standards of integrity outlined in The Times’s Ethical Journalism handbook. I approach every project with a sense of curiosity and an open mind. When conducting research, I am painstakingly thorough, making sure to avoid confirmation bias. To ensure that I understand my subjects, I will go to great lengths to talk to everyone with relevant information about them. In dealing with sources, I am honest and transparent, and I always strive to capture nuance, and to write with empathy and humility. To avoid misunderstandings and inadvertent mistakes, before any of my stories are published, I meticulously fact check them. As a rule, I neither participate in politics, nor make political donations. In fact, I choose to not vote. I never have.

• Email: [email protected]

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