Thu, 27 Mar 2025 00:58:41 GMT

I know Trump et al is in full “ kill the messenger” mode over Signalgate. So maybe it’s time to state the obvious: Jeff Goldberg and the Atlantic are actually delivering a master class on why professional journalism exists.

- on how journalists should report, write, fact check and decide what and when to publish. Because they could have published as soon as they saw the plans, in advance of their execution.

Because they could have published every word all at once instead of initially holding back plan details. Because they could have done all that without fact checking or telling anyone in the administration they were going to publish.

Instead they fact checked. They debated whether every detail needed to be published. And they decided - correctly - that whatever they published must be after the attack.

Once they knew what they had, they proceeded with the kind of professional care all of us should expect from journalists all the time.

So let’s acknowledge that it would have been easy for someone else in possession of this material to not do any of those things.

And let’s also take a moment to acknowledge that we are glad Goldberg and the Atlantic did not do that - and proceded with the kind of care even their enemies will no doubt privately acknowledge.

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