(CNN) -- When Edward Snowden decided to expose the administration's massive surveillance program, the CIA contractor turned to journalists he knew would be sympathetic. By approaching the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, a liberal columnist for a liberal newspaper, and filmmaker Laura Poitras, who Greenwald has credited with "exposing truths that are adverse to U.S. government policy," Snowden was following an increasingly common path for leakers of sensitive material: Find a like-minded soul in the media. And in doing so, they are bypassing the establishment press, which is then forced to play catch-up. True, Snowden wound up sharing part of his scoop with national security reporter Bart Gellman, who wrote about the government's Internet surveillance for his former newspaper, the Washington Post. But the fact that Gellman and the Post balked at the source's request that they commit to publishing all of his batch of Power Point slides—prompting Snowden to say he could no longer give Gellman the story exclusively—underscores why some leakers have grown wary of journalists who play by a traditional set of rules. Gellman has said the Post consulted with administration officials about the story and withheld some details at their request.
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Howard Kurtz: Liberal journalists have been recipients of some big scoops
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He says leakers who once might have only gone to mainstream media now have other options
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Glenn Greenwald says U.S. press has a history of behavior subservient to government
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Kurtz: Role of mainstream media as a neutral arbiter may be eroding
Glenn Greenwald
Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald
That is evident in the video interview he gave @placeholder, in which Snowden speaks quietly but passionately about being appalled by the surveillance state.