Greenwald: 768 words. Here: 152.

A column by Chris Blackhurst in “The Independent” lays bare the authoritarian mindset of western establishment journalism:

If the security services insist something is contrary to the public interest, and might harm their operations, who am I (despite my grounding from Watergate onwards) to disbelieve them?

This mentality condemns the publishing of the most valuable journalism of the past several decades, including the Pentagon Papers, the My Lai massacre, the CIA black sites, the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program, the documents negating claims of Iraqi WMDs, and even The Independent’s own Duncan Campbell’s exposing the existence of the GCHQ in the 1970’s for which he was prosecuted.

The only surprise here is that a journalist would freely admit to harboring “such subservient, obsequious sentiments,” belying the role establishment journalists claim to fill.

*****

Greenwald is leaving the Guardian to launch a new venture backed by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar.