Update: The graphic above came from X, and I used it for convenience. Several commenters have expressed skepticism about the report because I didn’t include a source. I should have, and I apologize. The original story came from the website Semafor, and subsequent reports were published in the NY Post, NPR, Yahoo! and others. That doesn’t mean the story is necessarily true, but the two papers haven’t denied it, which is what one would expect if they didn’t want to put a target on their own metaphorical backs and those of the leakers.
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I would like to think that the two banner-carrying newspapers in the Axis of Unethical Conduct did the right thing because it was the patriotic and ethical thing to do. I don’t believe that, unfortunately.
I believe that the mainstream media finally knows it is on metaphorical thin ice. Despite their attacks on President Trump for calling them—correctly and fairly— “enemies of the people,” they are smart enough to figure out that they have eroded the public’s trust to a perilous degree. Their competence, motives and integrity are in doubt now. Their arrogance and flagrant violations of the most basic tenets of journalism ethics are the cause of that.
In the past, leaking military plans of a controversial President would have been the natural course for these organizations, and they would have stood proudly on “the public’s right to know.” But I think they fear a tipping point after the Biden disability cover-up and the news media’s conspicuous failure to aggressively follow the bread crumbs in the Somali social services fraud scandal. The Times and the Post didn’t do the right thing because it was in the nation’s interest. It did the right thing because they are afraid.
And, ironically, that is also in the nation’s interest,




