Reporter Jake Tapper to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney:
There just seems to be disconnect here. You want aggressive journalism abroad; you just don’t want it in the United States.
The context: The Obama Administration, which has praised aggressive reporting on regimes elsewhere in the world, has brought six prosecutions against CIA whistle-blowers using the Espionage Act to censor information about CIA torture.
What does whistle-blowing have to do with journalism? If a journalist gained access to information from a whistle-blower, the journalist has legal protection from revealing the source.
The predicament of the administration is how to not make the country look bad, yet somehow seem to be doing the right thing? They are on the hook to enforce the laws. Whistle-blowers should have taken the route of deep throat.
The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be a base of reputable journalism in the US anymore. If we expect a journalist from one country to report from another country, then what is needed is a reputable source of journalism from outside the US to be reporting on the US.
Then, of course, it follows that the US does not want anyone policing it. The US wants to be at the top rather than equal with other countries.