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Are there any good-faith justifications for an American military censor?
by bigyabai 1y ago
Are there any good-faith justifications for an American military censor?
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoThey want to use the journalists to spread their propaganda rather than have them uncover inconvenient facts.
- charcircuit 1y agoThis is no different than pretty much any company. Do you think Apple lets reporters wander throughout their campus looking for new hardware, and allow them to ask engineers information about what they are working on? No. Apple does not let them wander around, and they advise all of their employees to never talk to press.
- lelandfe 1y agoHey you’re on a roll, don’t stop there. How does Apple respond to FOIA requests? They’re not subject to FOIA you say? Perhaps there’s a difference to the organizations after all.
- exe34 1y agoApple is a private company that answers to shareholders. The DoD is a government department that used to answer to the people.
- charcircuit 1y agoAnswering to the people doesn't mean that every secret must be made immediately public.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoThis is about not wanting the journalists to even ask for information from e.g. generals. No-one is saying that they want immediate disclosure of all secrets - I'm concerned that you're building a strawman.
- charcircuit 1y ago[flagged]
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoI completely disagree. Their job is to uncover truths that may not be immediately obvious and they may not even know the classification status of sensitive information before asking about it. The military should instead say something like "that information is classified". Why would the public want journalists to not even be able to ask the questions, never mind actually get the information?
- exe34 1y ago> Why would the public want journalists to not even be able to ask the questions, never mind actually get the information? because "the public" in this case are cult members that agree with whatever the eternal leader wants.
- wtfwhateven 1y ago>Journalists asking for classified and sensitive information are acting in bad faifth. How? >They know that these people are not allowed to give away the information, Not true, nor is everything is classified. It appears you've not actually read the article, or what the new restrictions even asked for. You're acting as if journalists were allowed to go rummaging in office drawers and journalists dislike being told they can't do that anymore.
- radley 1y agoOr they could be trying to uncover malicious acts hidden behind classification. You may be too young or too old to understand, but historically it goes both ways.
- troupo 1y agoYou have classified information for that reason. It's not the same as requiring journalists you literally let into public press conferences to shut up and spread propaganda unquestioningly
- baubino 1y agoNo one is suggesting that secrets be made public. The gov can and does classify info that must be kept secret.
- radley 1y agoBut it does require answers. Answers are a response to questions, otherwise they're just statements.
- kstenerud 1y agoWho is allowed to decide which secrets should or should not be made public? If your answer is "the government", then every cover up will never be revealed, and the government will answer to no one. If your answer is "journalists", then you have the status-quo in any functioning democracy. And when it actually moves into sedition territory, that's what an independent court system is for. Unfortunately, once things devolve into a two-party system, it becomes ever increasingly difficult to keep the various branches independent.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- intended 1y agoThis is moving the goal posts from your original position. Spend the time to refocus - if your position was erroneous, it was erroneous. Correct it, figure out what that means, then proceed. Moving on to a new version is to waste your own intelligence in reactionary sentence creation.
- tintor 1y ago[flagged]
- kanbara 1y agono, actually that requires congressional approval, and the government is currently shut down, mostly as a way to defer the release of the Epstein files. nice try, though.
- parineum 1y ago> mostly as a way to defer the release of the Epstein file How many disappointments will it take for people to realize there isn't any more there there than what's already been found? Or are the Epstein files are going to be what the minority party rambles about from now on instead of having a coherent message?
- j4coh 1y agoShould be quite simple to release them and move on then, that will be great.
- matwood 1y ago> there isn't any more there there than what's already been found? I thought this until seeing Trump look completely guilty every time it comes up, and the GOP leadership mobilizing to stop the release of the files.
- 1y ago
- oldpersonintx2 1y ago[dead]
- JuniperMesos 1y agoI don't think the US DoD meaningfully answered to me (a US citizen) by its previous policy of letting a bunch of reporters from some mainstream news outlets have offices inside the Pentagon under one set of rules, and I don't think the US DoD meaningfully answers to me by its current policy of putting more rules on those reporters that they don't like and are willing to resign over. I have a healthy amount of mistrust for both the US military and mainstream US journalism operations, and I don't assume that the military-related stories these reporters covered previously were the ones that were actually important for me to know.
- nandomrumber 1y agoNo one resigned.
- bigyabai 1y agoFor Apple that makes sense as there are financial damages. Can/should the US be able to sue for defamation if the claims aren't libel?
- f33d5173 1y agoApple doesn't demand ideological conformity from news oganizations before letting their reporters in, no.
- troupo 1y agoWell, it kinda does. Reporters Apple doesn't like get cut off from early access, interviews etc. However, Apple is a private company and can do whatever it pleases, however shitty that behavior is.
- esseph 1y agoApple doesn't own a monopoly on violence. Your argument doesn't carry any weight.
- lm28469 1y agoGovernments are companies now? The capitalism brain rot is in its final stages
- wtfwhateven 1y agoWhat possible relevance does what companies do have? I can't believe you're arguing this in good faith.
- j4coh 1y agoIf Apple had the ability to deploy military forces on behalf of my democratically elected government I'd actually be pretty concerned with them locking out the press too.
- RobotToaster 1y agoWe've already seen Musk boasting about the CIA organising a coup for him, so it wouldn't surprise me https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/29/we-will-coup-whoever-we-want-elon-musk-and-the-overthrow-of-democracy-in-bolivia/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/29/we-will-coup-whoever...
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> We've already seen Musk boasting about the CIA organising a coup for him I had a friend go deep into addiction. I think there was a period when every headline was his doing, too.
- virtue3 1y agoApple doesn't require you to pay a significant portion of you paycheck to them either.
- uncletammy 1y agoUnless you're a developer
- blitzar 1y agoYou are right, Apple should have its own nukes and bombers.
- croes 1y agoApple is neither a state nor a democracy. The journalists and the government are there to aserve the same boss: the people. Now one of the people's employees sabotages the work the other employee.
- ok_dad 1y agoThey’ve started bombing fishermen, you tell me why they want one. It’s not in good faith.
- newfriend 1y ago[flagged]
- cycrutchfield 1y agoFunny jokes about extrajudicial killings, ha ha
- croes 1y agoSource: trust me bro.
- nutjob2 1y ago> They’ve started bombing fishermen The word you're looking for is 'murdering'.
- guerrilla 1y agoDon't be silly. That's obviously what they meant. Not everyone is your enemy, relax.
- _factor 1y agoWith the blatant disregard for any rules and decorum, and a proven self-serving track record, I wouldn’t bet on it. You want to censor in the armed forces? Classify. You don’t tell reporters they can’t publish anything unapproved. Tomorrow the director gets caught stealing and toppling regimes and you can’t publish a word. After a long time of obeying this, you will fear doing so. Brilliant strategic play on the Trump admin. Win or lose, the pentagon is more opaque. I just wish they would used some of that brilliance on things that improved the world and adhered to why we have governments in the first place.
- DeepSeaTortoise 1y agoThe rules were updated on Oct6 to allow media outlets to report using any information even if classified and unapproved for release, as long as they didn't solicit it or were given it with the premise that it won't be released. So if they were to be approached by a whistleblower or happened to hear the right conversation or find the right documents, it'd be fair game.
- somenameforme 1y agoI think people are being slightly hyperbolic. It's basically stating that if a news outlet publishes unauthorized information then they won't be allowed access to the Pentagon. In general I think this is a good thing but not because I think it's a good idea. Rather, I think that the government, regardless of who happens to be in power, and the press should have an adversarial relationship, but the deep intertwining of the government and the press undermines this, even without corruption. You're generally going to be reluctant to frame entities that you have a positive relationship with in a negative way. And this agreement is essentially formalizing adversarialness. I just have this feeling that in modern times if the Pentagon Papers were leaked to the NYTimes - but in the context of Ukraine, and especially if the previous administration was still in power, they very possibly might have instead alerted US intelligence instead of publishing them. WaPo repeatedly pat themselves on the back for playing a key role in tracking down the person who leaked the Pentagon documents in 2023. They mostly ignored what was leaked and instead framed everything as a story of tracking down the source and why he might do such a thing. We have a very broken media system, and this, probably unintentionally, might be a big first step in fixing it.
- croes 1y ago>if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release. Any information that isn't approved by Hegseth is unauthorized. In other words, only what Hegseth allows could be written. To call the bad would be an understatement.
- DeepSeaTortoise 1y agoThere is an updated draft of the rules from october 6th that rectifies this and some other prior issues. I'm honestly not sure which rules the media outlets actually want changed.
- ben_w 1y agoI get the same feeling, but I don't think I can justify the feeling. IMO at best this is frogs* jumping out of water that was boiled too fast. * an idiom based on a stupid truth, as the real frogs were sans-brain at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
- blitzar 1y agoWhat is the point of being a Journalist (except for easy money and not having to do anything other than copy + paste) if you are only allowed to "write", word for word, the article they give you to publish?
- parineum 1y agoThey're still allowed to write whatever they want, they just won't be invited to Christmas parties anymore.
- croes 1y agoYou mean they are cut of from an important source of information so the adminstration can always claim hearsay
- vintermann 1y agoIf you identify sufficiently with the people giving you the article to publish, it's not a "they" but an "us". Even if the decisions are taken in rooms you don't have access to. Maybe they think they'll get access to them eventually if they're loyal. It might seem cowardly, but it isn't that different to what happens every day in business. Society is full of organisations working on the "make the boss' opinions your own" principle.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> If you identify sufficiently with the people giving you the article to publish Then you aren’t a journalist.
- vintermann 1y agoNot a good journalist maybe, but if you identify too little with them, you probably don't even get to "sit where you're sitting", as Chomsky said.
- 1y ago
- intended 1y agoThere can always be good-faith justifications. There’s always a good reason, or good intentioned idea. It’s why the saying about paver stones on the road to hell is all about. There were certain norms that America counted on, to hold its governance mechanisms in check. Those checks and balances are being broken. It is possible, that nothing will happen. People have fallen out of planes and survived. Maybe this will be America’s experience. The country I knew, that many others used to be angry with, but also respect - would NEVER have left such a thing to simple chance. There used to be many who stepped into the breach. And perhaps people are. It may simply be that this new information environment - geographically, financially consolidated, but ideologically divided - is ensuring that people who are solving problems and figuring things out, are unable to coordinate or gain traction. Gain traction in a manner that used to cross party lines.
- solatic 1y agoThis is a hyperbolic take. In countries with military censors, articles are submitted, from the newspaper's offices, to the censor's office for approval before publication. Nothing under this arrangement stops an American colonel from walking into the NYT's offices, dropping a folder at reception, and persuading the NYT to publish the contents of that folder. While it does prevent investigative journalism in the military, which is despicable on its own merits, the fact that it turns newspapers solely into PR outlets is neither new (i.e. as a general phenomenon in American media) nor limited to only the officially sanctioned point of view.
- jrflowers 1y agoI like your reasoning. There’s nothing stopping a news outlet from publishing anything other than the clearly outlined consequences. In a similar vein there’s nothing stopping anybody from finding out what happens if you swallow a D battery but for some reason none of my friends are doing that
- solatic 1y ago> In a similar vein there’s nothing stopping anybody from finding out what happens if you swallow a D battery but for some reason none of my friends are doing that Nice caveat, noting that none of your friends are doing that. But plenty of people do really dangerous, stupid shit and upload it to YouTube for the advertising dollars. Because news media is usually ultimately financed by advertising or partisan donors pushing a specific viewpoint, they're incentivized to publish dangerous stuff - but only the kind people want to see, which is why outlets like the New York Times didn't host video clips showing the outright gore from Charlie Kirk getting shot. The democratic value of an independent media rests on editorial discretion finding content that shocks its audience but not its advertisers.