On November 28th, WikiLeaks dumped approximately 250,0000 U.S. diplomatic cables, and the New York Times — in consultation with the government — refused to publish certain of these secret documents.
While all attention was on the recent flood of WikiLeaks’ secret diplomatic cables, none seemed to notice that one of the great journalistic institutions (the leader of the so-called Left-Wing Media Conspiracy) refused to publish certain portions of the cables after meeting with the State Department.
On page 2 of the following New York Times article, writers Scott Shane and Andrew Lehren note:
“The Times, after consultations with the State Department, has withheld from articles and removed from documents it is posting online the names of some people who spoke privately to diplomats and might be at risk if they were publicly identified. The Times is also withholding some passages or entire cables whose disclosure could compromise American intelligence efforts.”
Perhaps this doesn’t reflect the position of Shane and Lehren, but it does reflect the Times’ editorial position relative to the U.S. government, which it — as one of the most notable engines of our free press — must hold to account.
Naturally, the Times isn’t in the business of reprinting the near quarter-million secret cables available on WikiLeaks, but the idea that the newspaper would so willingly prostrate itself for the U.S. government is telling.
This is, after all, the very same newspaper that published Daniel Ellseberg’s leaked ”Pentagon Papers” in 1971, which painted a quite unflattering portrait of the Vietnam War, adding new layers to Richard Nixon’s already fragmented and paranoid mind.
Perhaps this is much ado about nothing, as the cables are all available on the WikiLeaks page for any curious person to read. However, it is rather depressing to see the New York Times so willingly do the bidding of the U.S. government. It certainly must make one wonder how often newspapers withhold information at the request of the government.
Not everyone has the time or energy to sift through WikiLeaks, but many millions read the New York Times, and it is their job to be free to summarize the documents without government intervention. Instead, the Times is acting as a filter of information — in effect, an engine of national security.
The information is already out in the aether: why is the New York Times shuddering?
November 29, 2010 at 6:32 pm, Sir-hart said:
Re: the NYT not blindly printing everything, in this case the documents stolen by and/or for WikiLeaks, that comes it way. We, Americans, call it “responsibility”. It's a quaint little custom that used to go hand-in-hand with rights.
Try it. It grows on you.
November 29, 2010 at 6:59 pm, D. J. Pangburn said:
I understand why a government wouldn't want the location of a military force or the names of spies released. But the diplomatic cables are already out in the aether. The New York Times isn't responsible for the leaks being made public–they're already public.
If they'd have consulted with the government on the Pentagon Papers, they'd never have been published.
Just raising a question that should be asked. The New York Times still does great journalism.
December 14, 2010 at 8:19 pm, Tea Party Congressman Wants to Censor WikiLeaks News Outlets | Death and Taxes said:
[...] Court decision allowing the ‘Times’ and the ‘Washington Post’ to publish ‘The Pentagon Papers,’ a move historians hail as a huge win for free media. West’s statement takes those precedents [...]