Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, has just done his country a great service, not that you would know it, judging by the amount of flak he’s taking from the US government.
To his reporting in The Atlantic exposing serious security breaches, the president responded by pleading ignorance and attacking the magazine: “I don’t know anything about it, I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me it’s a magazine that’s going out of business.” (This is very much his MO. When Time magazine ran a cover recently which he disapproved of, his knee-jerk reaction was to express surprise that Time was still in business.)
Meanwhile, his secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, went after the journalist: “You’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again… This is the guy that peddles in garbage. This is what he does.”
Goldberg had revealed that:
- contrary to government guidelines, senior US ministers were using a messaging app to discuss highly sensitive matters
- someone without security clearance (Goldberg) had been added to the group
- none of the very senior people in the group had either queried whether the app was a suitable place to discuss these matters or why there was an outsider in the group
The correct response by the government, of course, would have been to acknowledge the security lapse, launch an immediate investigation and to remind all government employees of the importance of using secure communication channels.
Under this administration, that is unlikely to happen, but they should be grateful that the information fell into the hands of a responsible American journalist and not an agent of a hostile foreign power, like Canada or Denmark.
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