Holder vs. the Associated Press

Did the A.P. Leak ‘Put the American People at Risk’? 

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL, NYT

Attorney General Eric Holder tried the other day to justify the government’s secret spying on The Associated Press. He condemned an apparent leak to the A.P. regarding a foiled (remember that word, foiled) terrorist plot hatched in Yemen, which he said posed a dire threat to national security.

It was not just a “very serious leak,” Mr. Holder said. It was “a very, very serious leak.” And that’s not all. “This is among the top two or three serious leaks that I’ve ever seen,” he said, one that “put the American people at risk.” Finding out who put the entire population in jeopardy “required very aggressive action,” he said.

Was it really that bad?

Here is what actually happened: The A.P., one of the most reliable and journalistically conservative news organizations around (full disclosure: I worked for them for a decade) had a story about the foiled plot and, as per usual, gave the administration a heads-up. National security officials asked The A.P. to hang onto the story for a while because publishing it at that time would have posed some unknown danger.

That’s fair enough. Any editor who’s worked with national security-related exclusives has had that happen. When I was Washington Editor and then Foreign Editor for The Times, I was involved in decisions to hold stories. The most basic imperative is not to publish articles that would put actual soldiers’ lives at risk. There are also more intangible kinds of reasons for holding a story — but letting the government avoid embarrassment is most definitely not among them.

(More here.)