Like politics, journalism depends on a slew of useful fictions too numerous to list here. But it’s worth pausing to watch as a new myth is sculpted before our very eyes.
During the last decade, the media has carefully cultivated an ingenious distinction between “whistleblowers” and “leakers.” You’ve surely seen both mesmerizing creatures on display in the carnival menagerie that is your nightly news. “Whistleblowers” reveal things America needs to hear; “leakers” have grubby agendas.
Despite the media’s love, whistleblowers are rarely famous for long. In 2002, Time magazine lamely named “whistleblowers” as their Person of the Year, putting three female whistleblowers on the cover. I doubt one in a thousand readers remembers Colleen Rowley of the FBI, Sherron Watkins of Enron or Cynthia Cooper of Worldcom, because most of these people are props, disposable icons used to make a point.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with whistleblowing per se. Exposing wrongdoing at great personal risk can be a sign of great courage as well as a moral obligation. The problem is that “whistleblower” — with its positive, even heroic connotations — is an honorific the press confers only on those whose whistling is music to their ears. (Nothing but guffaws greeted Linda Tripp’s supporters when they called her a whistleblower.) Everybody else is a mere “leaker.”
But the press is simply not a reliable arbiter of who is Thomas More and who is Ratso Rizzo. Indeed, it often seems the morality of the messenger is determined by the juiciness of the tidbit they deliver. The most famous example is Mark Felt, a.k.a. Deep Throat. Unlike most “whistleblowers,” he stayed famous largely because he remained a mystery for so long. A gauzy veil of romance enshrouded the former No. 2 man at the FBI who gave Bob Woodward the goods on President Richard Nixon.
In 2005, Molly Ivins described Deep Throat as a “noble whistleblower who dared to go to the press because his sense of integrity had been outraged by official misconduct and he had no other option.” The fact that Felt (who was convicted of ordering illegal break-ins) snitched on Nixon not to save the Republic, but because he was bitter at being passed over for J. Edgar Hoover’s job, proved a small inconvenience amid the adulation.
More recently, former Ambassador Joe Wilson burst into the limelight when he accused President George W. Bush of lying in his 2003 State of the Union address by saying that, according to British intelligence, Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. Whatever Wilson’s initial motives for attacking Bush’s “16 words” may have been, the fact is that Wilson was wrong and Bush was right — and the White House was foolish for saying otherwise.
Britain’s Butler Commission famously reinvestigated that allegation and found that it was “well-founded.” France — no fan of the war or Bush — stood by the allegation as well. Journalist Christopher Hitchens and others cataloged how Iraq dispatched an envoy to Africa to inquire about acquiring uranium “yellowcake.” Indeed, Wilson’s own verbal report to his CIA debriefers confirmed that Iraq sought the stuff. But the media continues to call Wilson a “whistleblower,” no doubt because his message is damaging to Bush and undercuts the rationale for the war.
There’s nothing noble about Wilson’s “whistleblower” shtick as he slumps further into asininity, hurling insults at his critics. In one recent speech, Wilson called Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol a “drunk” who “wants to punch America’s ambassador to Iraq in the face.” He even snidely insinuated that some prominent Republicans are closeted homosexuals. Even The New Republic’s Jason Zengerle felt compelled to declare: “Experts agree: Wilson’s a pig.”
Meanwhile, led by The New York Times, the press has created a perverse double standard. When Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, had her identity as a CIA employee leaked to the press, media Brahmins demanded that a special prosecutor force journalists to divulge their sources to punish the leakers. But when other, vastly more sensitive, classified information was leaked about secret prisons in Europe, the NSA’s wiretapping program, etc. the press was outraged at the suggestion that such leaks should be investigated. And when President Bush declassifies information and gives it to the press, as he has the unique authority to do, media chin-strokers are gobsmacked by his “hypocritical” leaking.
What the press really means when they salute a whistleblower for delivering news “America needs to hear,” is that “This is news the press wants you to hear.”
Examiner columnist Jonah Goldberg is editor at large of National Review Online and a syndicated columnist.
