The Obama administration”s prosecution and punishment by firing of government staff who talk to the press has undoubtedly caused a chilling effect on investigative reporting and will continue to do so.
President Barack Obama booted Gen. Stanley McChrystal Wednesday as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan after he and his staff gave scathing interviews criticizing the president in an article published Tuesday on the “Rolling Stone” Web site.
Obama said at a press conference Wednesday that McChrystal”s conduct does not meet the standard for a command-level officer and erodes trust of the team trying to fight a war.
“I welcome debate among my team, but I won”t tolerate division,” Obama said.
In the “Rolling Stone” article, it seemed like McChrystal talked to the reporter like a close friend, saying what he thinks without a filter. But unlike a close friend, a reporter doesn”t keep your secret; he or she is recording and writing things down, getting excited when you say something juicy and planning to tell hundreds, thousands and in this case hundreds of millions of people.
A member of the military also isn”t supposed to talk smack about the commander in chief.
McChrystal and his staff broke that rule. So, he”s out. Fine.
But the thousands of journalists trying to write profiles on government and military staff or attempting to get answers on questions important to the public will be left out in the cold. Stories will go un-reported.
The issue didn”t start with McChrystal.
“In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions,” the New York Times reported.
“Though Mr. Obama began his presidency with a pledge of transparency, his aides have warned of a crackdown on leakers. In a November speech, the top lawyer for the intelligence agencies, Robert S. Litt, decried ?leaks of classified information that have caused specific and identifiable losses of intelligence capabilities.” He promised action ?in the coming months.””
A spokesman for the Justice Department, Matthew A. Miller, said a case about a leak regarding the National Security Agency was not intended to deter government employees from reporting problems, the New York Times reported. “?Whistle-blowers are the key to many, many department investigations ? we don”t retaliate against them, we encourage them,” Miller said.”
“Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that defends whistle-blowers, said the Espionage Act, written in 1917 for the pursuit of spies, should not be used to punish those who expose government missteps. ?What gets lost in the calculus is that there”s a huge public interest in the disclosure of waste, fraud and abuse,” Radack said. ?Hiding it behind alleged classification is not acceptable.””
Journalists and sources need to work together to improve the country, but in some cases, top officials should probably keeps their mouths shut or at least use a filter.
Maybe if McChrystal read at least the first page of “Journalist and the Murderer” by journalist Janet Malcolm before interviewing with “Rolling Stone” he would still have his job.
“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people”s vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse. Like the credulous widow who wakes up one day to find the charming young man and all her savings gone, so the consenting subject of a piece of nonfiction writing learns ? when the article or book appears ? his hard lesson.” ? Janet Malcolm
Katy Sweeny is a staff reporter for the Record-Bee. She can be reached at kdsweeny@gmail.com or 263-5635, ext. 37.
