Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Balkinization

Legal Commentary

: Balkinization

What news about our war in Pakistan will be "fit to print"?

By Jack M. Balkin

The New York Times, in its editorial "Pakistan and the War," which generally supports the Obama policy, includes the following sentences:

"Such strikes have killed several top extremists, but the program is hugely unpopular in Pakistan and Mr. Obama must be judicious about expanding it. That means three things: extremely careful targeting, no civilian casualties or as few as possible, and no publicity."

Isn't it interesting that our leading "paper of record," whose slogan is "all the news that's fit to print," is suggesting that a program of attacks on a foreign country that will inevitably involve civilian casualties, however careful the targeting, should receive "no publicity." Does this mean that the Times will refrain from publishing any articles about the frequency of such attacks or, indeed, the inevitable civilian casualties? Does it mean that the Times will support efforts by the Obama Administration, should they choose to take them, to enjoin the Times from publishing such "sensitive" information whose publication would "harm national security" (according to the Times own editorial)? It is one thing, of course, to say that newspapers should refrain from publishing (and the public thereby prevented from knowing) sensitive information about very short-term future events (troop movements and the like). It is another thing to say that we should be kept in the dark about past events that may have extremely serious consequences for many different polities and populations.

Full post as published by Balkinization on December 08, 2009 (boomark / email).