The New York Times, L.A. Times Defend Themselves
In a joint editorial written by New York Times Editor Bill Keller and L.A. Times Editor Dean Baquet, the two defend their decision to make public details about the Treasury Department’s efforts to track terrorist financing.
The whole thing is worth a read, but here’s the conclusion:
We understand that honorable people may disagree with any of these choices — to publish or not to publish. But making those decisions is the responsibility that falls to editors, a corollary to the great gift of our independence. It is not a responsibility we take lightly. And it is not one we can surrender to the government.
I’d note that the decision about what details of covert intelligence-gathering efforts does not rest with the editors of America’s largest newspapers. Those men (and women, along with the anonymous government informants who break the law to pass this sort of information to them) have not been entrusted with that power by American citizens. They, in their overbearing manner, may think that responsibility lays with them, but it doesn’t. Rather, it lays with the leaders this country’s citizens have elected through the democratic process.
We do not elect journalists to make national security decisions, we elect Presidents and Congressman.
It is the height of arrogance for these editors and journalists to believe that, by right of their profession, they have the “responsibility” to ignore the pleadings of our elected leaders and make decisions that impact the very safety of our society. A majority of Americans placed President Bush and the various members of Congress into power so that they, and they alone, could establish the policies and procedures that keep this country safe from terrorism. When these two news editors made their decision to ignore our leaders and print details about a covert anti-terror program they thumbed their noses at both our elected leaders and the will of the people.
As a participant in the democratic process that put those leaders in power I am deeply offended at the sheer arrogance on display in the above op/ed. They hold up the first amendment as their shield against criticism, but to me this is not about free speech. This is about respecting the will of the people, and clearly the folks at these newspapers don’t.
