Edward Snowden’s leaks cause editorial split at the Washington Post

[xchrom]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/05/edward-snowdens-leaks-cause-editorial-split-at-the-washington-post/


Edward Snowden’s whistle-blowing activities have not only split America’s journalistic community, it appears to have split the Washington Post’s staff too.

In a surprising editorial, “Plugging the leaks in the Edward Snowden case”, the paper argued that the first priority should be to prevent Snowden “from leaking information that harms efforts to fight terrorism and conduct legitimate intelligence operations.”

It pointed out that Snowden “is reported to have stolen many more documents, encrypted copies of which may have been given to allies such as the WikiLeaks organisation.” And then it said:

“Stopping potentially damaging revelations or the dissemination of intelligence to adversaries should take precedence over US prosecution of Mr Snowden — which could enhance his status as a political martyr in the eyes of many both in and outside the United States.”

Meet the “Journalists Against Journalism” club!
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/02/meet_the_journalists_against_journalism_club/


David Gregory, David Brooks, Andrew Sorkin (Credit: AP/NBC/AP/Nam Y. Huh/AP/Chris Pizzello)

From David Gregory to Andrew Ross Sorkin to David Brooks, the ranks of Washington’s hottest new club continues to swell. Call it Journalists Against Journalism — a group of reporters and pundits who are outraged that whistle-blowers and news organizations are colluding to expose illegal government surveillance. To this club, the best journalism is not the kind that challenges power or even merely sheds light on the inner workings of government; it is about protecting power and keeping the lights off.

Before today, this club could be seen as a collection of individuals. But not anymore, thanks to the hard-to-believe house editorial of the Washington Post titled “Plugging the Leaks in the Edward Snowden Case.” Inveighing against the disclosures of NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the paper wrote that “the first U.S. priority should be to prevent Mr. Snowden from leaking information” and then fretted that Snowden “is reported to have stolen many more documents, encrypted copies of which may have been given to allies such as the WikiLeaks organization.”

What’s so utterly revealing about this editorial is not merely that it reads like hard-boiled talking points given to politicians by their surveillance-industry campaign donors. No, what sets this Washington Post editorial apart — what vaults it into the annals of history — is how it is essentially railing on the Washington Post’s own source and own journalism.

Yes, that’s right, the Post was one of two news organizations that Snowden originally contacted and that subsequently began breaking the NSA stories. That means the Washington Post editorial represents the paper’s higher-ups issuing a jeremiad against their own news-generating source and, by extension, the reporters who helped bring his leak into the public sphere.

[randome]

1. 'Leaker', not 'whistleblower'.

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[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[tularetom]

2. Nixon would've served out his full term if these wimps were running the Post in 1972

WTF has happened to journalism in this country?

"All the news that the government tells us we can print"

[leveymg]

3. Welcome to the New Cold War. We have our own McCarthyites around here.

I'd rather be on the side of the Ed Morrow and Izzy Stone than the Robert Novak and Rupert Murdoch in this one. We all know how the last one turned out.

[WillyT]

4. K & R !!!

[WillyT]

5. Kick !!!