News organizations including the New York Times and the Washington Post deliberately held back reporting on the US raid that captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, a decision Secretary of State Marco Rubio said likely saved American lives.
Rubio publicly thanked the press Sunday for keeping quiet about the secret operation until US forces were safely out of Venezuela, praising news outlets that chose restraint over scoops during a high-risk military mission.
The Gray Lady and WaPo were tipped off about the raid before it began late Friday but held off on publishing so as not to create risk for US troops, the news site Semafor reported over the weekend.
“[T]he number one reason is operational security,” Rubio said on ABC’s “This Week,” discussing the rationale for keeping the stunning undertaking secret.
“It would have put the people who carried this on in very — in harm’s way. And frankly, a number of media outlets had gotten leaks that this was coming and held it for that very reason, and we thank them for doing that or lives could have been lost. American lives,” the secretary of state told host George Stephanopoulos.
The comments marked a rare instance of praise from a top White House official for legacy media outlets that President Trump has repeatedly derided as hostile and untrustworthy.
Just before Christmas, Trump condemned the Times as a “serious threat to the national security of our nation” after the paper published an extensive report about the president’s relationship with the late sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The US press has a long tradition of withholding or delaying sensitive reporting at the request of the government when disclosure is deemed to pose an immediate risk to lives or national security.
Perhaps the most cited precedent dates back to 1961, when the Times learned in advance of the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba but agreed to delay publishing details in response to warnings from the Kennedy administration that doing so could imperil the operation.
In 2004, the paper learned that the George W. Bush administration was allowing the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans’ communications in the years that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Editors there delayed publication following appeals from the White House that disclosure could compromise counterterrorism efforts.
The paper ultimately published the story in December 2005, citing changed circumstances and public interest.
News organizations also coordinated with the Obama administration ahead of the 2011 raid that killed terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, withholding reporting on US military movements and intelligence activity until after the operation concluded.
Several outlets later acknowledged they were aware something significant was underway but chose not to report details while American forces were still inside Pakistan.
During World War II, formal censorship and informal cooperation between the press and government were the norm, with newspapers routinely suppressing information about troop movements, ship departures and military technology.
The New York Post has sought comment from the White House, the Times and WaPo.
