<story><title>Snowden: US asked British spy agency to stop Guardian publishing revelations</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/31/edward-snowden-nsa-gchq-guardian-book</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tootie</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think that&amp;#x27;s much of a revelation. Every time national security information falls into the hands of a news org, the government will ask them not to publish it. Sometimes appealing to them on civic grounds that it will weaken security or probably threatening legal action. The NY Times famously sat on the warrantless wiretapping story for nearly a year because they were lead to believe it could compromise ongoing investigations. Although it was never proven true, the Washington Times was accused of helping Osama bin Laden by revealing that US intelligence could track his satellite phone. In the US or UK media orgs generally has very little to fear in terms of actual punishment, but they do have to make a very real calculus over whether they&amp;#x27;re serving the public interest.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nimbius</author><text>&amp;gt;In the US or UK media orgs generally has very little to fear in terms of actual punishment, but they do have to make a very real calculus over whether they&amp;#x27;re serving the public interest.&lt;p&gt;not true.  media organizations that do not report in accordance with and to the governments favour may lose preferential access to press conferences as retaliation.  their parent companies, viacom, CBS, and Warner for example, may lose the cooperation of the government on their next latest action film which may deny them access to state parks or military equipment and bases for filming and props.  When you publish something the government doesnt like, they can also just straight up seize your profits from that material as well.  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&amp;#x2F;us-government-can-seize-profits-edward-snowden-book-2019-12?op=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&amp;#x2F;us-government-can-seize-prof...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;television news in the united states is under no objective requirement to serve the public interest in the 21st century.  the news was originally provided as part of a service to the mandate from the FCC that license holders contribute to the public good, but modern news is partisan, divisive, appeals extensively to emotion, and uses manipulative scare tactics to drive viewership and ratings with a combination of conjecture and talk shows.</text></comment>
<story><title>Snowden: US asked British spy agency to stop Guardian publishing revelations</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/31/edward-snowden-nsa-gchq-guardian-book</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tootie</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think that&amp;#x27;s much of a revelation. Every time national security information falls into the hands of a news org, the government will ask them not to publish it. Sometimes appealing to them on civic grounds that it will weaken security or probably threatening legal action. The NY Times famously sat on the warrantless wiretapping story for nearly a year because they were lead to believe it could compromise ongoing investigations. Although it was never proven true, the Washington Times was accused of helping Osama bin Laden by revealing that US intelligence could track his satellite phone. In the US or UK media orgs generally has very little to fear in terms of actual punishment, but they do have to make a very real calculus over whether they&amp;#x27;re serving the public interest.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>colechristensen</author><text>There are real cases where this is true and it&amp;#x27;s the responsibility of a news organization to weigh the public good against the consequences of sharing information and being very selective about what secrets to publish.&lt;p&gt;You should not want a news organization to err on either extreme by publishing literally everything they get their hands on (Wikileaks) or acting as a de facto arm of the state (state media outlet of choice).&lt;p&gt;I would argue that neither extreme count as journalists.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think that&amp;#x27;s much of a revelation.&lt;p&gt;Absolutely, they basically wouldn&amp;#x27;t be doing their job if they didn&amp;#x27;t ask.  Asking is a lot different than many other tactics.</text></comment>