Posted since I felt it introduced a lot of important data points on the topic.
According to the news website Semafor, both The New York Times and The Washington Post knew in advance—unlike members of the U.S. Congress—that Trump was planning to invade Venezuela and abduct Maduro, but they agreed to not say anything.
Such acquiescence to the dictates of official secrecy arguably does far greater harm to the press than anything that might happen to Harp. (As of press time, this subpoena has still not been served, perhaps due to the blowback it has received.)
If the press is to survive this wave of attacks, it must do a far better job of standing up for itself and for the principles on which the journalistic profession is founded. Instead, we see evidence of cowardice, accommodation, and retreat.
Posted since I felt it introduced a lot of important data points on the topic.
Idk, seems fair to me. It's not uncommon for news organizations not to release information when it would cause acute and immediate danger. For example, the kidnapping of David Rhodes...
The New York Times and Washington Post learned of a secret US raid on Venezuela soon before it was scheduled to begin Friday night — but held off publishing what they knew to avoid endangering US troops, two people familiar with the communications between the administration and the news organizations said.
Idk, seems fair to me.
It's not uncommon for news organizations not to release information when it would cause acute and immediate danger. For example, the kidnapping of David Rhodes
Rohde's kidnapping was kept quiet by much of the world's media following a request from The New York Times not to publicize the abduction. At least 40 news agencies were reported to know about the kidnapping, but observed the media blackout.
The Times' executive editor, Bill Keller, stated: "From the early days of this ordeal, the prevailing view among David's family, experts in kidnapping cases, officials of several government and others we consulted was that going public could increase the danger. We decided to respect that advice ... and a number of other news organizations that learned of David's plight have done the same. We are enormously grateful for their support."[12]
The important parts are twofold:
This should only be done when the danger is acute and immediate
It should be time limited, and the news should come out when the danger passed.
I suppose there's a philosophical question about when it's right for the press to hide things for the government. In the case of FDR being in a wheelchair during WW2, obviously it made a lot of...
I suppose there's a philosophical question about when it's right for the press to hide things for the government. In the case of FDR being in a wheelchair during WW2, obviously it made a lot of sense to hide that. But in general, I don't support the belief or the heuristic that it's always the patriotic thing to guard state secrets. When the government is doing terrible or foolish things, it's the patriotic thing to blow the whistle.
Though it may have endangered a few service people to do so in this case, the subsequent blockade of oil to Cuba has had a substantially greater humanitarian toll and the perceived "success" of the Venezuela operation likely tipped decision making in favor of assassinating the Iranian Ayatollah and other leadership, which has killed more US military personnel, has had devastating effects on American interests, and obviously has led to countless dead Iranians.
If NYT and WashPo didn't release the info because they believed in the ethics of the operation or put their faith in the strategic decision making of the Trump admin, then they should come out and say so.
It's not about that, it's about the acuteness of the danger and the duration. If they received this intel, say, two weeks earlier. I think they would have published it. But the issue is that they...
If NYT and WashPo didn't release the info because they believed in the ethics of the operation or put their faith in the strategic decision making of the Trump admin, then they should come out and say so.
It's not about that, it's about the acuteness of the danger and the duration.
If they received this intel, say, two weeks earlier. I think they would have published it. But the issue is that they got the scoop just as the actual operation was starting. Leaking this would directly put blood on their hands.
It's like the trolley problem, in the end. If there was a train that was about to run into and destroy the grain supply of a village if 100 people, that would instead run over 5 people if the track junction was switched, would you switch the tracks?
There's no correct answers, per se, but I am fully OK with the answer the NYT and WaPo had.
There is also a practical aspect. News organizations are sometimes given information to allow them to prepare articles for later release, on the strict condition that the government controls the...
There is also a practical aspect. News organizations are sometimes given information to allow them to prepare articles for later release, on the strict condition that the government controls the timing. War is a very typical circumstance for that kind of agreement.
If the news organization refused to agree, they might not be given the information in the first place. If they renege on the deal, they lose future access and they also become known as untrustworthy. We don't know what the terms of the negotiations were.
The New York Times and Washington Post learned of a secret US raid on Venezuela soon before it was scheduled to begin Friday night — but held off publishing what they knew to avoid endangering US troops, two people familiar with the communications between the administration and the news organizations said.
The decisions in the New York and Washington newsrooms to maintain official secrecy is in keeping with longstanding American journalistic traditions — even at a moment of unprecedented mutual hostility between the American president and a legacy media that continues to dominate national security reporting. And it offers a rare glimpse at a thread of contact and even cooperation over some of the highest-stakes American national security issues.
President Donald Trump and top administration officials Saturday praised the stunning seizure of the Venezuelan president, which Trump approved at 10:46 p.m. Friday, citing both the lack of American casualties and the total secrecy surrounding the attack.
“The coordination, the stealth, the precision, the very long arm of American justice - all on display in the middle of the night,” Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said.
Hegseth did not mention that part of that secrecy was the news outlets’ decision — unlike other countries, the US does not have a mechanism for the government to prevent publication of secrets — to hold off their reporting for several hours after the administration warned that reporting could have exposed American troops performing the operation.
Spokespeople for the White House, the Pentagon, and the Washington Post declined to comment on the conversations between journalists and officials Friday night. A Times spokesperson didn’t immediately offer a response to an inquiry.
Maybe so, but it would be more convincing if the author had actually made an argument about why that's true, rather than just using the word "arguably."
Such acquiescence to the dictates of official secrecy arguably does far greater harm to the press than anything that might happen to Harp.
Maybe so, but it would be more convincing if the author had actually made an argument about why that's true, rather than just using the word "arguably."
Posted since I felt it introduced a lot of important data points on the topic.
Idk, seems fair to me.
It's not uncommon for news organizations not to release information when it would cause acute and immediate danger. For example, the kidnapping of David Rhodes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_David_Rohde
The important parts are twofold:
This should only be done when the danger is acute and immediate
It should be time limited, and the news should come out when the danger passed.
In this case, I would say both are true.
I suppose there's a philosophical question about when it's right for the press to hide things for the government. In the case of FDR being in a wheelchair during WW2, obviously it made a lot of sense to hide that. But in general, I don't support the belief or the heuristic that it's always the patriotic thing to guard state secrets. When the government is doing terrible or foolish things, it's the patriotic thing to blow the whistle.
Though it may have endangered a few service people to do so in this case, the subsequent blockade of oil to Cuba has had a substantially greater humanitarian toll and the perceived "success" of the Venezuela operation likely tipped decision making in favor of assassinating the Iranian Ayatollah and other leadership, which has killed more US military personnel, has had devastating effects on American interests, and obviously has led to countless dead Iranians.
If NYT and WashPo didn't release the info because they believed in the ethics of the operation or put their faith in the strategic decision making of the Trump admin, then they should come out and say so.
It's not about that, it's about the acuteness of the danger and the duration.
If they received this intel, say, two weeks earlier. I think they would have published it. But the issue is that they got the scoop just as the actual operation was starting. Leaking this would directly put blood on their hands.
It's like the trolley problem, in the end. If there was a train that was about to run into and destroy the grain supply of a village if 100 people, that would instead run over 5 people if the track junction was switched, would you switch the tracks?
There's no correct answers, per se, but I am fully OK with the answer the NYT and WaPo had.
There is also a practical aspect. News organizations are sometimes given information to allow them to prepare articles for later release, on the strict condition that the government controls the timing. War is a very typical circumstance for that kind of agreement.
If the news organization refused to agree, they might not be given the information in the first place. If they renege on the deal, they lose future access and they also become known as untrustworthy. We don't know what the terms of the negotiations were.
Here's the text of the original Semafor piece.
Maybe so, but it would be more convincing if the author had actually made an argument about why that's true, rather than just using the word "arguably."