Michael Kinsley’s review of Glenn Greenwald’s new book , “No Place to Hide” hasn’t even appeared in the printed Book Review yet – that won’t happen until June 8 – but it’s already infuriated a lot of people. After the review was published online last week, many commenters and readers ( and Mr. Greenwald himself ) attacked the review, which was not only negative about the book but also expressed a belief that many journalists find appalling: that news organizations should simply defer to the government when it comes to deciding what the public has a right to know about its secret activities.

In the most heavily criticized passage of the review, Mr. Kinsley wrote:

The question is who decides. It seems clear, at least to me, that the private companies that own newspapers, and their employees, should not have the final say over the release of government secrets, and a free pass to make them public with no legal consequences. In a democracy (which, pace Greenwald, we still are), that decision must ultimately be made by the government. No doubt the government will usually be overprotective of its secrets, and so the process of decision-making — whatever it turns out to be — should openly tilt in favor of publication with minimal delay. But ultimately you can’t square this circle. Someone gets to decide, and that someone cannot be Glenn Greenwald.

It’s not the first time that Mr. Kinsley has expressed these kinds of sentiments, as some astute Times readers noted.



Tom Barrett, of Edmonton, Alberta, wrote to my office with this observation:

I suspect I am not the only reader to be perplexed at the choice of Michael Kinsley to review Glenn Greenwald’s new book. The result is as predictable in its own way as having Jeremy Scahill review it, or James Clapper. Wouldn’t it have been better to have chosen someone with a more balanced take on both Greenwald and the arguments he makes to evaluate the book? One cannot entirely escape the disturbing suspicion that Kinsley was chosen because of Greenwald’s repeated criticism of the mainstream media in general and the Times in particular. I am nearly finished reading the book and will make my own judgment, but I feel let down by the decision to choose someone guaranteed to produce a hatchet job.

Brant Freer of Troy, Mich., wrote to describe the review as “a vicious attack not only on Greenwald but also generally on journalism in the public interest.”

I asked the Book Review editor, Pamela Paul, why Mr. Kinsley was chosen to review the book. The intention, she said, was not to produce a particular point of view or to somehow exact revenge for Mr. Greenwald’s criticism of The Times.

She wrote to me in an email:

We chose Michael Kinsley, a frequent contributor to the Book Review (he recently reviewed “Double Down” for us, and before that “Going Clear”), because he has decades of experience in news journalism as well as in book criticism, has written extensively about the media and current affairs, and is thoughtful and smart in his approach to reviewing.

Ms. Paul said that she was aware of the negative reaction to the review but that there had also been “some very strong positive responses.” She added: “I think this is one of those subjects that people have strong feelings about, and there are obviously entrenched interests on either side.” As for the piece itself, she said, “It is a smart, lively, well-written review that took a point of view about the book and the subject matter.”

Here’s my take: Book reviews are opinion pieces and — thanks to the principles of the First Amendment — Mr. Kinsley is certainly entitled to freely air his views. But there’s a lot about this piece that is unworthy of the Book Review’s high standards, the sneering tone about Mr. Greenwald, for example; he is called a “go-between” instead of a journalist and is described as a “self-righteous sourpuss.” (I’ve never met Mr. Greenwald, though I’ve written about his work, as Mr. Kinsley notes.)

But worse, Mr. Kinsley’s central argument ignores important tenets of American governance. There clearly is a special role for the press in America’s democracy; the Founders explicitly intended the press to be a crucial check on the power of the federal government, and the United States courts have consistently backed up that role. It’s wrong to deny that role, and editors should not have allowed such a denial to stand. Mr. Kinsley’s argument is particularly strange to see advanced in the paper that heroically published the Pentagon Papers, and many of the Snowden revelations as well. What if his views were taken to their logical conclusion? Picture Daniel Ellsberg and perhaps the Times reporter Neil Sheehan in jail; and think of all that Americans would still be in the dark about — from the C.I.A.’s black sites to the abuses of the Vietnam War to the conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center to the widespread spying on ordinary Americans.

Yes, as Ms. Paul rightly noted to me, it’s true that a book review is not an editorial, and the two shouldn’t be confused. And she told me that she doesn’t believe that editing should ever change a reviewer’s point of view. But surely editing ought to point out gaping holes in an argument, remove ad hominem language and question unfair characterizations; that didn’t happen here.

A Times review ought to be a fair, accurate and well-argued consideration of the merits of a book. Mr. Kinsley’s piece didn’t meet that bar.

Updated, 9:22 p.m. | After the above post was published, Ms. Paul offered some further response. It is as follows: