{"id":31324,"date":"2023-06-22T10:22:58","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T14:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=31324"},"modified":"2023-06-22T10:23:37","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T14:23:37","slug":"a-nyt-reporters-deleted-tweet-shows-how-the-media-became-the-pentagons-plumbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2023\/06\/22\/a-nyt-reporters-deleted-tweet-shows-how-the-media-became-the-pentagons-plumbers\/","title":{"rendered":"A NYT Reporter&#8217;s Deleted Tweet Shows How the Media Became the Pentagon&#8217;s &#8216;Plumbers&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=31325\" class=\"attachment wp-att-31325\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/jack-teixeira-1024x578-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"802\" height=\"453\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-31325\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Last month<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>New York Times<\/em><span>&nbsp;<\/span>international correspondent David Philipps offered a mea culpa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just deleted a tweet that lacked nuance,\u201d the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/David_Philipps\/status\/1647251205666787328\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Philipps, who in 2022 received the top award in journalism for his reporting on previously undisclosed US military strikes that killed thousands of civilians in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, was walking back an observation made following the arrest of 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of leaking state secrets. Philipps noted the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Times<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/em>had worked \u201cfeverishly\u201d to assist the Pentagon in identifying Teixeira.<\/p>\n<div style=\"display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" class=\"\" style=\"position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 249px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;\" title=\"Twitter Tweet\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=feeonline&amp;dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;features=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%3D%3D&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1647251205666787328&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Ffee.org%2Farticles%2Fa-nyt-reporters-deleted-tweet-shows-how-the-media-became-the-pentagons-plumbers%2F&amp;sessionId=04fa4ed706181950c1f544bb683c462791171878&amp;siteScreenName=feeonline&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=aaf4084522e3a%3A1674595607486&amp;width=550px\" data-tweet-id=\"1647251205666787328\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cIronically, if the same guy leaked to the NYT, we\u2019d be working feverishly to conceal it,\u201d Philipps<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/miltimore79\/status\/1647291213920325634\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">wrote<\/a><span>&nbsp;<\/span>in the deleted tweet.<\/p>\n<p>In an odd twist, the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Times<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/em>had gone from publishing state secrets to helping the government conceal them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-0\">The Pentagon Papers, Then and Now<\/h2>\n<p>Publishing state secrets is an old game, one the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>New York Times<\/em><span>&nbsp;<\/span>knows well.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In 1971 the Grey Lady published classified materials \u2014<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/research\/pentagon-papers\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">the Pentagon Papers<\/a><span>&nbsp;<\/span>\u2014 showing that the government was lying about the Vietnam War. Papers leaked to the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Times<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/em>by antiwar military analyst Daniel Ellsberg revealed that America\u2019s foothold in the war-torn country was much worse than the public had been told.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While the Nixon administration \u2014 which secretly created a team of \u201cplumbers\u201d to plug the leaks \u2014 argued the documents were a threat to national security, the reality was they were primarily an embarrassment to the government. As R. W. Apple Jr.<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1996\/06\/23\/weekinreview\/25-years-later-lessons-from-the-pentagon-papers.html\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">wrote<\/a><span>&nbsp;<\/span>in the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>New York Times<\/em><span>&nbsp;<\/span>a quarter century later, the Papers \u201cdemonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest\u2026.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tapes from the Oval Office of a June 14, 1971<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nsarchive2.gwu.edu\/NSAEBB\/NSAEBB48\/oval.pdf\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">conversation between Nixon and aide H.R. Haldeman<\/a><span>&nbsp;<\/span>confirm the assessment that government credibility was what was truly at stake. \u201cTo the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing,\u201d Haldeman told Nixon. \u201cYou can\u2019t trust the government; you can\u2019t believe what they say\u2026 .\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One can argue that the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Times<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/em>was right to publish the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the government\u2019s lies about Vietnam. Or one can argue it was wrong, since it undermined the war effort.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s clear is that the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Times<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/em>was fighting to expose the government\u2019s secrets, not protect them.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-1\">\u2018Ukrainian Forces in Dire Straits\u2019?<\/h2>\n<p>There are similarities between the Pentagon Papers and the Teixeira leaks. While it\u2019s debatable whether the leaks put national security (or Ukrainian security) at risk, it\u2019s clear they are an embarrassment for government officials.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The documents \u201csuggest that the Ukrainian forces are in more dire straits than their government has acknowledged publicly,\u201d the New York Times<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/article\/leaked-documents-ukraine-russia-war.html\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">admits<\/a>. The Associated Press, meanwhile, noted that \u201cat least one of the documents shows estimates of Russian troops deaths in the Ukraine war that are significantly lower than numbers publicly stated by US officials. Under a section titled \u2018Total Assessed Losses,\u2019 one document lists 16,000-17,500 Russian casualties and up to 71,000 Ukrainian casualties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is a very different picture than what Americans have been told by military officials. For example, Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/milley-russia-has-significantly-well-over-100000-casualties-in-ukraine-2023-1\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">publicly stated<\/a><span>&nbsp;<\/span>Russia had suffered \u201csignificantly well over\u201d 100,000 casualties in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-2\">Gate-Keepers and Gate Crashers<\/h2>\n<p>Why the government would wish these documents to remain secret is obvious. But why would<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>The New York Times<\/em><span>&nbsp;<\/span>and the Washington Post, which also assisted the Pentagon in its hunt for&nbsp; Teixeira?<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\">\n<div id=\"om-fqmeg7lcejd7fy5oro5r-holder\">\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"om-lxkcubhhqwmdm0lkjkbp-holder\">\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s not because the papers are squeamish about publishing illegally obtained documents. The<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Times<\/em><span>&nbsp;<\/span>does this<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2019\/11\/16\/world\/asia\/china-xinjiang-documents.html\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">all the time<\/a>. So does The<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Washington Post,<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/em>which<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/washington-post-wins-pulitzer-prize-for-public-service-shared-with-guardian\/2014\/04\/14\/bc7c4cc6-c3fb-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">received<\/a><span>&nbsp;<\/span>a Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for its reporting on the National Security Agency\u2019s illegal mass surveillance program, like the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Times<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/em>did<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pulitzer.org\/article\/race-publish-pentagon-papers#:~:text=The%20Times'%20journalism%20in%20producing,2016%20centennial%20of%20the%20Prizes.\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">in 1972<\/a><span>&nbsp;<\/span>for the Pentagon Papers reporting.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So why are these same papers now hunting leakers?<\/p>\n<p>Again, it\u2019s not because these leaks are a threat to national security. As journalist Glenn Greenwald points out, both the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Times<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/em>and the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Post<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/em>have been running stories like crazy on Teixeira\u2019s leaks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The real answer comes down to incentives and gatekeeping. The government and media get to decide what leaks are appropriate, what gets published, and what gets prosecuted. It\u2019s a symbiotic relationship that serves them both.<\/p>\n<p>The US government, the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Times<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/em>notes, classifies tens of millions of documents every year. These documents tell stories. And a small, select group of people \u2014 journalists, editors, publishers, and government officials \u2014 get to decide which stories get told, and which stay concealed. Former CIA officials like Frank Snepp<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bfcarlson\/status\/1601216811483250688\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">have publicly discussed<\/a><span>&nbsp;<\/span>how The Agency\u2122 plants stories with journalists to shape public opinion. In return for planting stories, journalists are often given access to documents, tips, and exclusives.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>These are the gatekeepers. Jack Teixeira and Julian Assange are gate<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>crashers<\/em>. They threaten to destroy this delicate balance. By dumping state secrets on Wikileaks or Discord that are not approved \u2014 even if sensitive information is redacted to protect national security \u2014 people like Teixeira and Assange disrupt the whole system of \u201ccontrolled leaking.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This is why the<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>Washington Post<\/em><span>&nbsp;<\/span>and<span>&nbsp;<\/span><em>The New York Times \u201c<\/em>worked feverishly\u201d to identify Teixeira, and it\u2019s why they treat Assange as a pariah. It\u2019s not so much that these leaks are a threat to national security; what they truly threaten is this monopoly on state secrets, which has the power to conceal not just embarrassments but<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bfcarlson\/status\/1643685945617653773?t=jbunj1ZdpOMRNRXRNrwe5Q&amp;s=19\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">atrocities<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F#:~:text=Juvenal's%20question%20quis%20custodiet%20ipsos,in%20contravention%20of%20their%20duties.\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">an age-old saying<\/a>:<em><span>&nbsp;<\/span>uis custodiet ipsos custodes<\/em><span>&nbsp;<\/span>(\u201cwho guards the guardians\u201d)? It\u2019s a question central to constitutional democracies and government more broadly, and it gets at the rub of state power: how do we hold those in power accountable when they have all the power?<\/p>\n<p>We often think of the Fourth Estate as one of the great bulwarks against government tyranny and protector of freedom. \u201cOur liberty,\u201d Thomas Jefferson famously observed, \u201cdepends on the freedom of the press\u2026 .\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This is what makes the media\u2019s new role as a defender of state secrets so troubling.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While there are commendable journalists like Philipps dedicated to truth and government accountability, the role of media appears to be shifting to what economist Murray Rothbard described as<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/library\/rothbard-court-intellectuals\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">Court Intellectuals<\/a>: servants of the state \u201cwho win their place as junior partners in the power, prestige, and loot extracted by the State apparatus from the deluded public.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By assisting in the apprehension of Teixeira, the Fourth Estate shows it\u2019s not very interested in government transparency or accountability. The media are happy to play the role of plumbers, so long as they maintain their perch.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E_-efpukppE\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aier.org\/article\/how-the-media-became-the-pentagons-plumbers\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">This article originally appeared on AIER<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" defer=\"\" async=\"\"><\/script>\n<div>\n<h5>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/fee.org\/people\/jon-miltimore\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><br \/>\nJon Miltimore<br \/>\n<\/a><\/h5>\n<p class=\"brief-bio\">\n<p>Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. (<a href=\"https:\/\/jjmilt.substack.com\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">Follow him on Substack<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p><span>His writing\/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"font-style: italic;\">This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/a-nyt-reporters-deleted-tweet-shows-how-the-media-became-the-pentagons-plumbers\/\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month&nbsp;New York Times&nbsp;international correspondent David Philipps offered a mea culpa. \u201cI just deleted a tweet that lacked nuance,\u201d the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner&nbsp;wrote. Philipps, who in 2022 received the top award in journalism for his reporting on previously undisclosed US military strikes that killed thousands of civilians in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, was walking back an observation made following the arrest of 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of leaking state secrets. Philipps noted the&nbsp;Times&nbsp;had worked \u201cfeverishly\u201d to assist the Pentagon in identifying Teixeira. \u201cIronically, if the same guy leaked to the NYT, we\u2019d be working feverishly to conceal it,\u201d Philipps&nbsp;wrote&nbsp;in the deleted tweet. In an odd twist, the&nbsp;Times&nbsp;had gone from publishing state secrets to helping the government conceal them.&nbsp; The Pentagon Papers, Then and Now Publishing state secrets is an old game, one the&nbsp;New York Times&nbsp;knows well.&nbsp; In 1971 the Grey Lady published classified materials \u2014&nbsp;the Pentagon Papers&nbsp;\u2014 showing that the government was lying about the Vietnam War. Papers leaked to the&nbsp;Times&nbsp;by antiwar military analyst Daniel Ellsberg revealed that America\u2019s foothold in the war-torn country was much worse than the public had been told.&nbsp;&nbsp; While the Nixon administration \u2014 which secretly created a team of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[3954,3955,3953,3952],"class_list":["post-31324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-politics","tag-david-philipps","tag-jack-teixeira","tag-new-york-times","tag-nyt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31324"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31328,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31324\/revisions\/31328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}