Collusion among New York Times, Washington Post, and the CIA — to Keep a Drone Base Location Secret — a Comment on the Decline of the Function of the Fourth Estate

© 2013 Peter Free

 

07 February 2013

 

 

Citation — to a basic overview of what happened

 

Karen McVeigh, US newspapers accused of complicity as drone report reopens security debate — New York Times and Washington Post knew about secret drone base in Saudi Arabia but agreed not to disclose it to the public, The Guardian (06 February 2013)

 

 

Citations — to the two American newspapers’ admissions

 

 

Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung, Brennan nomination exposes criticism on targeted killings and secret Saudi base, Washington Post (05 February 2013) (see 12th paragraph)

 

Margaret Sullivan, The Times Was Right to Report — at Last — on a Secret Drone Base, New York Times (06 February 2013) (see 2nd paragraph)

 

 

Citation — to the best (early) refutation of the logic of secrecy in this instance

 

Adrian Chen, The ‘Secret’ Saudi Drone Base Revealed By The Times Today Was Actually Reported Months Ago, Gawker (06 February 2013)

 

 

Summary of what happened — the “free press” decided to be neither free nor informative

 

The Guardian’s Karen McVeigh summed the surprising news so well that I will leave it to her words:

 

 

US news organisations are facing accusations of complicity after it emerged that they bowed to pressure from the Obama administration not to disclose the existence of a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia despite knowing about it for a year.

 

 

On Tuesday, following Monday's disclosure by NBC of a leaked Justice Department white paper on the case for its controversial targeted killing programme, the Washington Post revealed it had previously refrained from publishing the base's location at the behest of the Obama administration over national security concerns.

 

 

The New York Times followed with its own story on the drone programme on Wednesday, and an op-ed explaining why it felt the time to publish was now.

 

 

© 2013 Karen McVeigh, US newspapers accused of complicity as drone report reopens security debate — New York Times and Washington Post knew about secret drone base in Saudi Arabia but agreed not to disclose it to the public, The Guardian (06 February 2013)

 

Apparently, even the American press is on board with occasionally intentionally preventing citizens from knowing what American government is doing with their money and (as an indirect and eventual result) our troops’ lives.

 

The newspapers finally revealed their secret yesterday — the day before John Brennan, CIA Director nominee, undergoes a confirmation hearing in the Senate.

 

 

A tidbit of background — other media outlets had already placed the base in Saudi Arabia

 

Presumably the Administration/CIA motivation in asking the Times and the Post to stay mum was the Saudi government’s legitimate sensitivity to Saudi public opinion — which would almost certainly not approve of Christian imperialists mounting a drone murder program from Saudi territory.

 

No sensible person would argue that Saudi sensitivity and the Administration’s response to it were illegitimate.

 

On the other hand, as Adrian Chen points out:

 

 

In fact, the Times of London reported 18 months ago that the CIA was "launching daily missions with unmanned Predator aircraft from bases in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates."

 

And a September 2011 story from FoxNews.com reported similar news: A "senior U.S. military official" "confirmed the construction of a new airstrip in Saudi Arabia," which the U.S. was using to expand to its drone program.

 

(It seems that all mention of Saudi Arabi was scrubbed from the FoxNews.com story sometime after publication and replaced with the less-specific "Arabian Peninsula," though the original still viewable on the mobile version.)

 

The fact that the drone base was already reported renders the rationale behind the months-long blackout a farce.

 

© 2013 Adrian Chen, The ‘Secret’ Saudi Drone Base Revealed By The Times Today Was Actually Reported Months Ago, Gawker (06 February 2013)

 

 

One can legitimately criticize both newspapers’ behavior — from two morally opposite standpoints

 

One can take either (a) the government-favoring perspective or (b) the public’s right to know emphasis:

 

(a) If the newspapers genuinely thought that the CIA’s government secrecy plea was warranted and weighty, as compared to the public’s freedom of the press interest — then the applicable circumstances that led to that decision have not changed.  Therefore, the story should not have been released yesterday.

 

(b) From the ethically opposite perspective, if the newspapers did not think the CIA request was warranted and weighty, as compared to the public’s freedom of press interest — then neither paper had a legitimate reason to refrain from publishing the location of the drone base at the time they learned of it.

 

 

The most basic issue is the role of a free press in an allegedly democratic republic

 

Historically, American news outlets have tended to favor publication over indulging government-aiding secrecy, except in times of declared war.  (Here I do not mean definitionally bogus “wars” like those on terror and drugs.)

 

Today, however, I suspect that most older citizens recognize that this Fourth Estate balance of priorities has been changing for some time.

 

In the last few decades, American mainstream media have been complicit in not challenging Government, even when a lukewarm view the duties of a Free Press would favor “sticking it to the Man.”

 

The Times and Post’s secrecy in the Saudi drone base matter is representative of the change.  And they illustrate the professionally questionable grounds for that disturbing de-evolution.

 

 

The ethical illogic underlying the Times and Post’s late disclosure of the “secret” base

 

Both newspapers’ illogical decision to publish now — even though the secrecy-prompting circumstances have not actually changed — demonstrates both their hypocrisy and their professional unwillingness to fully pursue the unrelenting mission that their Fourth Estate function would arguably require.

 

To demonstrate this, let us leave aside Mr. Chen’s (arguably correct) argument that the newspapers were not hiding anything that was not already known.  His insight dilutes the ethical issue too much for sound “parable-izing.”

 

Let’s assume, instead, that the two newspapers were the only news media on the planet that knew that the secret American drone base was sited in Saudi Arabia.

 

According to Margaret Sullivan (public editor), her newspaper’s managing editor (Dean Baquet) decided to reveal the drone base secret now because:

 

“It was central to the story because the architect of the base and drone program is nominated to head the C.I.A.,” Mr. Baquet told me on Wednesday. In past stories, he said, the location of the base “was a footnote.”

 

© 2013 Margaret Sullivan, The Times Was Right to Report — at Last — on a Secret Drone Base, New York Times (06 February 2013)

 

In other words, the Times is publishing now because national attention is focused on the John Brennan’s Senate hearing, and the newspaper will garner more interest (meaning money) than it would have if it had published when the drone base first came to light.

 

This explanation overlooks the fact that the Administration’s indiscriminate and due process-lacking drone murder policy has always been legally questionable and morally indefensible.

 

One would think that an honorable press outlet would have gravitated toward revealing all elements of an arguably indefensible government policy — immediately and always when they surfaced.  Not simply when revelation became expedient, disingenuously explainable, and profitable.

 

 

The moral? — Americans cannot count on the media to keep them apprised of what de facto foreign policy “King” Obama is doing

 

American democracy is at a crossroads.

 

If we cannot reliably learn what Government is up to, how are we supposed to ensure that it is:

 

(a) doing what we want

 

and

 

(b) not doing what we don’t.

 

Although I understand the unenviable pressures of defying both the Administration and the CIA, I do not think that the news media is ultimately here to be complicit in restoring quasi-monarchical function and secrecy to American government.

 

Both newspapers, especially given their reputations, should be ashamed.