Naming Names: Echoes of Valerie Plame
In a piece by its Public Editor, the New York Times acquits itself of endangering the interrogator of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, by naming him while describing how he successfully extracted information through psychological means rather than “rough stuff.”
The Times defense (the public’s right to know, the impaired credibility of a story without the name of a key character, the decision that he would not be in any greater danger than “scores of others who have been identified in the news media for their roles in the war against Al Qaeda”) bookends all the outrage over the outing of Valerie Plame as a covert operative by a vengeful Bush Administration.
Granted the huge gap in motives, what the incidents have in common is the question of protecting people who do dangerous work for all of us. Would readers have been deprived of crucial information by withholding the name of the interrogator any more than they were by being unaware of Valerie Plame’s identity?
Doesn’t identifying him undermine the point of the story by making it unlikely that he could continue to do what the Times obviously judged to be important work for national security?
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4 Responses to “Naming Names: Echoes of Valerie Plame”
Anonymity is reserved for government officials spouting government propaganda. Just ask NYT “reporter” Michael Gordon.
I was baffled by the meagre reason behind not agreeing to the subject's request for anonymity given in the article. I see that the public editor has not done any better job of justifying this choice. First, the front-page story does put this individual in more harm than “scores of others who have been identified.” Second, why is it so important for the public to know his identity, given the reasonable risk for his safety that naming him raises? This was not a case where his name was important to the substance of the story or even to the credibility of the account (as I recall, corroborating sources for the information were mostly identified; though, as ChrisWWW notes, the Times seems to only apply the credibility analysis selectively).
It appears that he is not, not ever was, a covert operative and currently works for a private contractor.
Whether he was covert or not is rather beside the point. Jeopardizing a person's safety without sufficient reason is a questionable thing for the Times to do. Same approach as for a government witness against a lethally dangerous syndicate, you might say.