[Infowarrior] - When in Doubt, Publish

[Richard Forno]

When in Doubt, Publish

By On Secrets
Sunday, July 9, 2006; B02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/07/AR2006070701
146_pf.html

It is the business -- and the responsibility -- of the press to reveal
secrets.

Journalists are constantly trying to report things that public officials and
others believe should be secret, and constantly exercising restraint over
what they publish.

Most Americans want their government to be held accountable, which is the
raison d'?tre of watchdog journalism. At the same time, they do not want the
press to disclose government secrets that are vital to national security.

The journalist's dilemma, then, lies in choosing between the risk that would
result from disclosure and the parallel risk of keeping the public in the
dark -- a quandary that has become all the more pointed since the attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001. As deans charged with imparting the values of journalism to
the next generation of reporters and editors, we favor disclosure when there
are not strong reasons against it.

That issue is front and center again because of the June 23 articles in the
New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal describing
the government's efforts to track terrorist financing. The New York Times
has attracted most of the outrage because it took the lead in investigating
the system.

It is appropriate for Americans to be concerned when news organizations
publish information that the president and others in authority have strongly
urged not be published. No sane citizen would wish the media to provide
terrorists with information that would be likely to endanger Americans.

President Bush has denounced the Times in exceptionally harsh language, and
on June 29 the House formally condemned the paper. Some critics of the Times
have termed its actions "treasonous" and called for criminal charges under
the Espionage Act. One conservative commentator told the San Francisco
Chronicle that she would happily send Bill Keller, the paper's executive
editor, to the gas chamber.

Keller has characterized the decision to publish the information as a "close
call," making this an especially important example to examine. Despite its
security concerns, the public has shown steady support for the media's
watchdog role. Earlier this year, a survey by the Pew Research Center for
the People and the Press found that 56 percent of respondents said it was
very important for the media to report stories they believe are in the
nation's interest. A third of respondents ranked government censorship on
the grounds of national security as more important. The public wants the
press to keep a sharp lookout, but wants the job performed responsibly. We
share this sentiment.

In the case of the stories about financial data, the government's main
concern seemed to be that the hitherto cooperative banks might stop
cooperating if the Times disclosed the existence of their financial tracking
system. So far, that apparently has not happened.

For many Americans, however, the possibility of damage to terrorist
surveillance should have been sufficient justification for the Times to
remain silent. Why, they ask, should the press take such a chance?

There are situations in which that chance should not be taken. For instance,
there was no justification for columnist Robert D. Novak to have unmasked
Valerie Plame as a covert CIA officer.

We believe that in the case of a close call, the press should publish when
editors are convinced that more damage will be done to our democratic
society by keeping information away from the American people than by
leveling with them.

We know from history that the government often claims to be concerned about
national security when its concern is that disclosure will prove politically
or personally embarrassing. The documents that came to be known as the
Pentagon Papers in 1971 told how Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F.
Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had misled Americans about our role in the
Vietnam War. Hence the classification of their contents.

In the aftermath of 9/11, a new climate of caution was a sensible response
to a sophisticated terrorist foe. But Bush's reaction -- declaring a "war on
terror" and claiming the Constitution grants almost limitless powers to the
president in a time of war -- is excessive. His administration has been
aggressively restricting access to information on the grounds of national
security. For example, earlier this year historians complained that
intelligence agencies were removing previously declassified documents from
archives. Some of these papers dated as far back as the Korean War; many had
been cited multiple times in books.

In general, the administration has sought to conduct much of what it calls
the war on terror in secret, and it has been able to do so with little
oversight from Congress, which would normally be a key check on power. When
the press has played such an oversight role, it has often been harshly
criticized.

For instance, a few months ago Bush denounced the Times for revealing the
National Security Agency's program of monitoring international telephone
calls by Americans without first obtaining warrants, as the law requires. In
that case, Bush rebuked the paper for revealing a classified secret. For
most observers, however, the most important secret that was revealed was
that the president had ignored the statutory process that Congress had
established.

Despite the rhetoric of their fiercest critics, most journalists take
secrets seriously. Indeed, in a number of cases since 9/11, many news
organizations, including the Times, have forgone publication of information
at the request of the Bush administration. The Times held the article on
domestic eavesdropping for a year, publishing it only after the paper
thought that the issues raised were of great importance.

We believe that the extraordinary power of the presidency at this moment
mandates more scrutiny rather than less. Yet Attorney General Alberto R.
Gonzales has said he would consider prosecuting journalists for publishing
classified information. Such an action would threaten to tilt the balance
between disclosure and secrecy in a direction that would weaken watchdog
reporting at a time when it is badly needed.

We subscribe to the vision of Carl C. Magee, a crusading journalist whose
Albuquerque newspaper infuriated another president in the 1920s with
revelations in the Teapot Dome scandal. Forced to close his paper after
being driven to bankruptcy, Magee emerged two months later with another
newspaper.

Emblazoned on the front page was a new motto, borrowed from Dante: Give
Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.

journalismdeans at hotmail.com

Geoffrey Cowan, dean

Annenberg School for Communication

University of Southern California

Alex S. Jones, director

Shorenstein Center

Harvard University

John Lavine, dean

Medill School of Journalism

Northwestern University

Nicholas Lemann, dean

Graduate School of Journalism

Columbia University

Orville Schell, dean

Graduate School of Journalism

University of California at Berkeley
© 2006 The Washington Post Company