The relationship between the whistleblower and journalism has not always been a neat one. The tendency for symbiosis to become positively vengeful — much like Saturn eating his children — is evidenced in the Washington Post stance on Edward Snowden's whistleblowing activities.
Having scooped up a Pulitzer working on the Snowden findings on massive invasions of privacy both in the United States and on a global scale, the paper got nasty.
There was little need for the paper to wade into these waters, but the editors obviously felt so strongly about Snowden it went for the jugular with seething conviction. The prompting probably came from the release of Oliver Stone's Snowden, which goes some way in creating a justification for the actions of the sub-contractor.
As Joseph Gordon-Levitt (pictured), who plays the title role, explained to ABC News Breakfast, 'personally, I think that what he did was a service to our country and to our world ... [but] I don't think anybody should take anybody else's word for it.'
In taking its stance, the Post's editorial reveals itself to be bombastically patriotic, clear that such interception programs as the mass, non-discriminating hoovering of PRISM was 'clearly legal and not clearly threatening privacy' (presumably it was obliquely doing so).
Such an assessment blissfully ignores a host of rulings at the federal level, much of this spearheaded by the ACLU, deeming such indiscriminate interception programs as unconstitutional. Indeed, Congress went so far as to attempt a reform of the intelligence community, albeit imperfectly, for the first time in four decades as a direct, if unacknowledged nod, to Snowden's 2013 revelations.
But for the Post, Snowden had done something 'Worse — far worse — he also leaked details of basically defensible international operations: cooperation with Scandinavian services against Russia; spying on the wife of an Osama bin Laden associate; and certain cyber operations in China.'
The stance taken by the Post is somewhat different from such papers as the LA Times. 'President Obama now has the opportunity,' explained Anthony Romero in its pages, 'to use his power [of pardon] proudly, in recognition of one of the most important acts of whistleblowing in modern history.'
"The whistleblower is held to a standard far higher than the person or institution he is exposing; he must consider the entire gamut of possibilities, with each exhaustion entirely a matter for authorities guarding the status quo."
The defence case for Snowden can then be made on two points: