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Showing Original Post only (View all)Journalistic impartiality tested in NSA leak story [View all]
I searched for this story and the other one I posted awhile ago and the advanced search is moving VERY slowly, so apologies if this had already been posted. The piece is about Glenn Greenwald, who, I must admit is one of my least favorite people.
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Some reporters who helped break the National Security Agency surveillance story reject the impartial journalistic stance that was a fundamental principle for a previous generation of reporters.
By James Rainey, Los Angeles Times
June 17, 2013, 8:28 p.m.
Edward Snowden may represent the archetypal leaker of the Internet age a tech savant who justifies his civil disobedience as a righteous rebuttal to the big institutions he believes have intruded too far into ordinary people's lives.
But it's not just the mole in the National Security Agency surveillance story who is operating in new channels. The reporters who brought his account forward also represent something distinct in journalism. In some cases, their profiles loom larger, particularly on the subject of security and spying, than those of their publications. And a couple offer full-throated attacks on unchecked government surveillance, as they reject the impartial journalistic stance that was a fundamental principle for a previous generation of reporters.
That combination means significant parts of official Washington have attacked not just Snowden, but some of the reporters who brought forward accounts of the NSA's vast trove of telephone and Internet data. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) has called for the criminal prosecution of Glenn Greenwald, the columnist, author and lawyer who first broke the story for the Guardian of London.
Some journalists had complaints about the stories as well, a few because of what they said was imprecise reporting but others because of details the stories did not disclose. They wanted to know more about the kind of individuals whom the security agency investigated and why.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nsa-media-20130618,0,1314321,full.story