Glenn Greenwald · @ggreenwald
15th May 2014 from TwitLonger
.@jackshafer Book tour hell prevents me from answering your column more extensively. I (sorry to disappoint you!) found your critique perfectly reasonable, but three quick points to note:
(1) I made repeatedly clear in the book, and in most of my other media critiques, that there are outstanding journalists doing great journalism even at the media outlets I criticize most frequently and harshly (eg Dana Priest and Bart at the WashPost, Jim Risen & Charlie Savage at the NYT, etc).
(2) I'm not opposed to the process of seeking comment from the USG before publishing top secret documents or giving them an opportunity to argue why it shouldn't happen. That was done in all the stories - *all - that I worked on for the Snowden archive (though in 99% of the cases, the USG's arguments for suppression were rejected). I'm opposed specifically to how that process leads to the suppression of information that ought to be newsworthy, the leading examples of which I included in my book, including the NYT's suppression of the 2005 NSA story for 15 months (through George Bush's re-election, which was published ONLY because a frustrated Jim Risen was about to break the story in his book).
(3) The critique that the US media is *generally too close and subservient to (ie non-adversarial with) the USG is hardly unique to me or some radical notion. It's what led to the Iraq War media debacle and is, far and away, the most commonly expressed media critique I hear wherever I go.