[THS] NYT reporters met with White House before publishing WikiLeaks story

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26025.htm

New York Times reporters met with White House before publishing WikiLeaks story

The administration "praised" New York Times reporters for their handling of leaked
Afghan war material

By Alex Pareene
July 27, 2010 "Salon" --  The White House was very upset with WikiLeaks for its
decision to publish thousands of pages of classified reports and documents describing
our mission in Afghanistan. But according to Yahoo's Michael Calderone, it was very
pleased with how the New York Times dealt with its semi-exclusive access to the
documents.

Times Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet took reporters Mark Mazzetti and Eric
Schmitt to the White House last week to brief the administration on what they
planned on publishing. And they all got gold stars.

    “I did in fact go the White House and lay out for them what we had,” Baquet said.
“We did it to give them the opportunity to comment and react. They did. They also
praised us for the way we handled it, for giving them a chance to discuss it, and for
handling the information with care. And for being responsible.”

The Times redacted some information in the name of "national security" and
protecting the safety of individual soldiers, but the White House doesn't seem to have
told the Times that publishing stories based on these documents would in any real
way harm our troops.

So, uh ... why was all of this information classified and top secret? If it's old news,
and it just confirms what "everyone" already knows, what was the rationale for
keeping it classified and calling WikiLeaks all sorts of mean names for publishing it?

    * Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene at salon.com
and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene