Thinking Things Over: The Press and The Pentagon

Note from Joel: This is the first of an occasional series of reflections about things not at all related to alcoholic beverages. The title comes from a column written by one of my journalistic heroes, Vermont Royster, editor of the The Wall Street Journal from 1958 to 1971. He, in turn, got it from a column written decades earlier by his predecessor, William H. Grimes. I hope you'll forgive the diversion. It will appear here and elsewhere.

President Trump was in a foul mood, demanding to know who was responsible for publishing the fact that a pilot was down inside Iran.

The fact one pilot was missing should never have been published. That most certainly put his life at risk.  

In times past, a reporter getting this leak might have asked the Pentagon for confirmation.  Or, he might have simply sat on the story until the pilot was safely rescued.  Looking back over 60 years, reporters have routinely withheld Information that could help the enemy or put our troops at risk.

The classic example goes back to Dec. 7, 1941, when after a miserable day of learning the true damage done at Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt invited Edward R. Murrow into the Oval Office around midnight and  laid it all out.  Roosevelt didn't ask Murrow to withhold anything or seek any approval.  But Murrow never broadcast a word of what FDR told him.

In the military-press relationship, the fact an attack is imminent has always been fair game.  It's hardly a secret when you're massing people, equipment and supplies. But the day, the time and precise target or landing has always been withheld by the press, even when reporters knew.  The basic principle: Report everything, but don't put people's lives at risk. 

Politicians didn't always like the coverage they got during war, especially when it disclosed "top secret" reports that detailed how they lied or blundered.  But they never came after the press. 

From its inception, Trump has been different.  He called the press "public enemy No. 1" during his first campaign. Hegseth demanded reporters agree to publish only handouts as a condition for being credentialed.  In many ways, this administration has gone out of its way to make it clear it doesn't believe the people have a right to know what governmental leaders are doing – unless it makes the leaders look good. 

Nowhere has this been more true than at the Pentagon where Secretary of War Pete Hegseth kicked the traditional Pentagon press corps out of the press corridor.  Then he tried to make Stars & Stripes a propaganda vehicle – something it has never been, not even in the darkest days of World War II.  And then he kicked out even the boot-licking right-wing press he had invited into the press corridor. In short, he burned the bridges that used to exist between press and administration. 

The fact a pilot was missing should never have been published.  The Iranians might have suspected the pilot was in their territory, but the published report confirmed it. However, the first responsibility for the leak is with the leaker--not with the press.   

There hasn't been a lot of emphasis in this administration about keeping secrets. Recall that Secretary Hegseth himself conducted a texting session disclosing the exact time and targets of an attack with the editor of The Atlantic among the people on the call.  

Had Trump, Hegseth and the administration spent more time reminding that, as they used to say in World War II, "a slip of the lip can sink a ship," we might not be at this point.  But that's not this President, who likes to bully, and it's not Hegseth, who likes to strut like a Hollywood general.