Why newsrooms haven’t published leaked Trump campaign documents
< < Go Back
an alleged hacker hiding behind a pseudonym offering internal documents of questionable news value — has echoes of the Russian hacks of Democratic campaign emails in 2016, which were then published by WikiLeaks and eagerly picked over by the press.
Now, eight years later, media organizations are being tested again with how best to cover news from an alleged hack, without playing into the hands of foreign actors looking to interfere in American elections. For now, the decision among the outlets that received the documents has been not to publish them, focusing instead on the possible hack itself.
“This episode probably reflects that news organizations aren’t going to snap at any hack that comes in and is marked as ‘exclusive’ or ‘inside dope’ and publish it for the sake of publishing,” said Matt Murray, executive editor of The Post. Instead, “all of the news organizations in this case took a deep breath and paused, and thought about who was likely to be leaking the documents, what the motives of the hacker might have been, and whether this was truly newsworthy or not.”
More From The Washington Post (subscription required):
Rss Feed