New York Times Draws Criticism over Intelligence Stories

JEFFREY BROWN:

Among the many issues raised by recent revelations about the Bush administration's prosecution of the war on terror, one age-old question has re-emerged: What should the press reveal about secret government wartime operations?

On Friday June 23, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post all published stories on the monitoring of terrorists' financial dealings through an international banking clearinghouse called SWIFT, the Society For Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.

The administration had tried to persuade The New York Times, in particular, not to run the story. The Times went ahead anyway, and has since found itself castigated by the administration and others.

President Bush last week:

GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: The disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America. And for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Also last week, congressional Republicans secured a non-binding resolution condemning The Times and other papers for publishing details of the classified financial tracking program. In an interview with the NewsHour's Kwame Holman, Arizona Republican Representative J.D. Hayworth blasted the paper.

REP. J.D. HAYWORTH (R), Arizona: Given the nature of this conflict and given the nature of our enemies, it is counterproductive, to say the least, for The Times to engage in this. Really, the more accurate term is, it's simply outrageous. And, fundamentally, it's dangerous.

JEFFREY BROWN:

The editor of The New York Times, Bill Keller, and the editor of The L.A. Times, Dean Baquet, responded to the criticisms over the weekend in an unusual joint op-ed, in which they explained how, why and when they report on sensitive material.

And on NBC's "Meet the Press" this past Sunday, Washington Post reporter Dana Priest defended the disclosure of classified information. Priest won a Pulitzer Prize this year for stories about a CIA network of secret overseas prisons for terror suspects.

DANA PRIEST, The Washington Post:

Every time there's a national security story they don't want published, they say it will damage national security, but they — for one thing, they have never given us any proof.

DANA PRIEST:

The point is, the tension between the media and the government is longstanding. And that's to be expected. And, in fact, all these — many of the people getting up to lambaste the media now are also people that we talk to with our stories.

JEFFREY BROWN:

The New York Times came in for a similar round of criticism in December, when it revealed the existence of a secret National Security Agency program that monitored Americans' international phone calls without warrants.