Some of the biggest stories of the year came from Edward Snowden’s revelations about the scale and scope of the National Security Agency’s spying and data collection. In his first extended interview, “Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished,” Barton Gellman, the Washington Post reporter who helped break the stories, gives Snowden the room to explain his motivations and strategy.

Glenn Greenwald, who in a few years has moved from lawyer to blogger to one of the world’s most well-known journalists, and filmmaker Laura Poitras worked closely with Snowden to bring the revelations to light. In 2014, Greenwald and Poitras — along with Jeremy Scahill, author of Dirty Wars; and Liliana Segura, who has experience at The Nation and Alternet — will launch . First Look Media, funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. The structure of the new organization is still evolving but likely will shakeup mainstream journalism in new and productive ways.