Thursday, July 13, 2006

Not so SWIFT - Why the Times shouldn't have published its story. By Jacob Weisberg

Not so SWIFT - Why the Times shouldn't have published its story. By Jacob Weisberg: "Newspaper editors tend to be very uncomfortable making complex balancing judgments about the public interest vs. national security and usually end up falling back on the one bright line they do have, the 'troop movements' test of whether anyone on our side might be killed as a result of their publishing information. But how should they make a decision in a case like this, where immediate consequences are not at issue? To run with a story with the potential to cause significant harm to the national interest, I'd argue, an editor needs one of two things: a solid claim of public interest, or a sound basis for thinking that a story won't in fact damage national security. In the case of the SWIFT story, editors at the Times were notably weak in both suits."


Notice this is Slate, and Jacob Weisberg. I don't think Keller has alot of friends left on this one.

1 comment:

cf said...

Well their coverage of the war against Hezbollah and Hamas should cost them their last readers. It's all good.