Lawrence Meyer on Transparency, Media and the Internet

What is your opinion of the New York Times writing articles based on excerpts from the WikiLeaks trove of classified U.S. military material?

LM: The New York Times is a responsible news organization that is aware of the dangers of printing classified information and takes appropriate precautions, including consulting with the government, to ensure that national security isn't threatened by publication of the information. Obviously it can be dangerous to make such information public, but I think the Times is aware of the danger and takes appropriate steps to minimize it.

In many other major investigative projects for the media, the whistleblower is anonymous. In what ways are anonymous tips and data desirable? In what ways are they out of line?

LM: Anonymous tips don't strike me as much of a problem for a responsible news organization because the tips need to be reported and confirmed. Data are no different. Any information that comes anonymously needs to be checked, and checked sufficiently to be certain that the information is accurate. Verifying the accuracy of information isn't enough, though. The motivation of the tipster needs to be determined whenever possible to make sure that the tip and the information are complete so that the full context of the situation being reported is considered. In a situation where national security is involved, the government should be consulted to at least hear what issues it considers important. The news organization then should make its own decision about whether or not to publish.

Considering that the head of WikiLeaks is as secretive as the military and intelligence organizations he is so critical of, and is virtually unavailable and unaccountable, what are your thoughts about the Times working with such a person and giving him and his group imprimatur?

LM: The primary consideration isn't the source of the information or the reputation of the person revealing it, although that should be taken into account, but the truth and accuracy of the information, the need of the public to know it and the potential danger to national security. The news organization has to learn as much as possible about the source of the information as part of its own decision making process.

The Times of London reported that the names of hundreds of Afghanis who had cooperated with the U.S. military, plus which villages they lived in, were contained in the WikiLeaks documents, thus targeting them for extermination by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The New York Times refused to link directly to WikiLeaks mainly for this reason. Despite this precaution, do you think newspaper reporters are qualified to determine or guarantee that revealing military secrets would not endanger soldiers and civilians?

LM: No, I don't think reporters are qualified "to determine or guarantee that revealing military secrets would not endanger soldiers and civilians." That's why I think the responsible course is to consult the government, hear it out and then make a determination.

The Obama administration is pursuing legal action against New York Times reporter James Risen for revealing U.S. intelligence secrets during the Bush administration, and it also obtained an indictment of a former top National Security Agency official for providing classified information to a Baltimore Sun reporter. Your thoughts?

LM: The government is free to prosecute its employees for unauthorized disclosure of classified information. Some things should be secret. That's in the public interest. The question is how much information should be withheld from the public. That's a matter for public discussion and debate. But it isn't up to individual government employees, on their own, to make the determination that a given piece of information or great deal of information that's classified should be made public. The law restricts unauthorized release of classified information, and the law ought to be enforced.

As far as Mr. Risen is concerned, he is not protected by the First Amendment or any government shield law. He was aware of the risk he was taking in publishing the information. He decided that the risk was worth it for what were probably good and honorable reasons. I'm reluctant to go beyond that because this situation is much too complicated to give a brief answer.

Two San Francisco sportswriters became famous for writing stories revealing secret grand jury information concerning baseball star Barry Bonds and his use of steroids. Your thoughts?

LM: Grand jury information is supposed to be secret, among other reasons, to allow full and complete investigations to proceed while protecting innocent parties from being falsely accused or maligned in public. The power of grand juries to investigate in secret is a means of protecting the innocent. I'm not a big fan of revealing secret grand jury testimony for that reason. Weighing the theoretical protection of the innocent against the need of the public to know what accusations were made against Barry Bonds isn't a tough call. In that situation, I would favor maintaining the secrecy of grand jury proceedings.

Considering that the above questions deal with the press printing military secrets, intelligence secrets and grand jury secrets, is there too much power of the press? Are there any limits on what the press should be able to do? Are there any limits on how transparent the government should be?

LM: I don't think the press is "too powerful," despite the always present danger that the media can do unnecessary damage to an individual's reputation, print misinformation or endanger national security. I would rather have that situation than live in a country where the media's right to publish is restricted by prior restraint. I've made it clear in my previous answers that responsible media need to follow appropriate standards and procedures when it comes to national security. As far as defamatory information is concerned, we have libel and slander laws that make it possible for people who have been unfairly or wrongly damaged to seek redress. Those laws are a deterrent against irresponsible media conduct.

Of course there are limits to how transparent a government should be. Some things need to be secret, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. Keeping information secret to avoid embarrassing a government official who's screwed up or to prevent the public from knowing about flaws or failures in policies isn't generally acceptable.

During your lengthy career with the Washington Post, you were involved with many stories that posed these important questions for you. Can you share with us the one story that means the most to you now and how you dealt with the ethical dilemmas?

LM: Watergate comes to mind as a story where the Nixon administration tried to use national security as a smokescreen to cover up its own criminal acts. There never seemed to be much of an ethical dilemma, especially since the administration's efforts to withhold information were so clearly self-serving. Publishing the Pentagon Papers would be another example, but I wasn't directly involved with that coverage or the decision to publish.

Some journalists contend that too often the government abuses the classification of material and slaps a secrecy tag to cover up wrongdoing or mistakes by government officials or others with power, and investigative reporting by the press corrects that abuse and informs the public. Your thoughts?

LM: I.F. Stone said once that all governments lie, and a corollary to that statement is that all governments dispense and withhold information to put themselves in the best possible light. Without investigative reporting to get behind the official version of events, the public often wouldn't know what's really going on.

(Mr. Meyer spent 32 years as a reporter and editor at the Washington Post, where he witnessed many of the 20th century's most dramatic events. He covered the attempted assassination of George Wallace, the Watergate break-in trial, the Senate Watergate hearings, and the subsequent impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon. He is also the author of four books including his newest, "The Final Edition," a fictionalized telling of the rise and fall of the newspaper as an institution.)