Drifting political for just a moment, I wanted to share some thoughts on a recent freedom-of-the-press debate that's created quite a buzz within the circles that get a buzz from such things.
The issue: The New York Times and LA Times recently broke a story about the U.S. government secretly tracking international banking to net terrorists. Not a big shocker to most folks, I'm guessing. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I assume that just about any kind of financial account is ripe for government snooting. That's why I buy my shoulder-mounted rockets with cash.
The strangeness: The Wall Street Journal also ran a story about the program the same day, but their editorial page then slammed The New York Times for running its story.
The question: Wha?
The answer: The WSJ story was based on authorized leaks from the government, not actual reporting that uncovered the secrets. At least, that's what the WSJ editorial says...and it says it with pride.
The second question: Wha?
Here's the WSJ editorial's assessment of how its paper got the story. For those of you outside journalism, I should note it isn't tremendously rare for a government to pad the blow of a negative story by feeding it to a more sympathetic (read, "spineless") news outlet:
Around the same time, Treasury contacted Journal reporter Glenn Simpson to offer him the same declassified information. Mr. Simpson has been working the terror finance beat for some time, including asking questions about the operations of Swift, and it is a common practice in Washington for government officials to disclose a story that is going to become public anyway to more than one reporter. Our guess is that Treasury also felt Mr. Simpson would write a straighter story than the Times, which was pushing a violation-of-privacy angle.
In a great letter, Washington journalist Ron Kampeas responded with:
If I were Glenn Simpson, I would leap over that much-vaunted wall (vaunt over it?) between editorial and opinion and slug someone on the Wall Street Journal editorial page for making me look like a government shill.
My take: Now, I don't want this to seem like a judgment on whether it was right to publish this bit of super-secret info. I'm going to trust The New York Times when it says it put an intense amount of effort into its decision. I've written and edited quite a few stories that government officials said would cause chaos in the streets, but I have yet to see said chaos.
My big concern here is that The Wall Street Journal's editorial page accomplishes a double whammy against its own industry.
First, it constantly refers to "The New York Times" as being a liberal rag that hates the government, despite noting early on that the editorial pages and news pages are clearly divided (a divide I'm sure the WSJ reporters are reminding people about now, too).
This just feeds the ignorant belief that newspapers are innately liberal or conservative and that reporters all have political agendas. I've known a lot of journalists in my day, and it's the extremely rare exception that lets a personal view cloud his or her approach to the news. This simpleton belief that news outlets take one side or the other is a political tactic that, if carried to its logical extreme, could lead to a propaganda state.
Second, The Wall Street Journal imples -- well, flat out states -- that the proper role of a newspaper is to wait until the government gives a big green light to every story. They defend this with the tired excuse that we're at war. Hey guess what? We're always at war. That's not a reason to shackle the First Amendment or assail the truth as espionage.
In order to save itself, the newspaper industry must prove it still offers something other outlets don't. The New York Times and LA Times have spent the past few months doing just that. The Wall Street Journal editorial chastises such hard work and tacitly encourages a new explosion of partisan blogging.
My advice for the WSJ editorial page: When you want to poison your enemy, poison his glass. Not the pitcher you're all sharing.
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