Edward Snowden Criticizes Media's Coverage Of Him

NSA leaker Edward Snowden criticized the media's coverage of him during a live chat on Monday.

Snowden was responding to questions from readers of the Guardian, the paper that helped him expose top-secret American and British surveillance programs.

Some journalists have drawn scorn for focusing on Snowden's girlfriend or his Internet history rather than the secrets he revealed, or for questioning his underlying character and motives.

A reader asked Snowden for his thoughts on the media debate around him.

"Initially I was very encouraged," he wrote. "Unfortunately, the mainstream media now seems far more interested in what I said when I was 17 or what my girlfriend looks like rather than, say, the largest program of suspicionless surveillance in human history."

Snowden also denied that he was in contact with the Chinese government.

"I only work with journalists," he said.