It’s worth noting that most of the major news orgs passed on this story despite being offered the opportunity to cover it.
How do you know that?
but given that various orgs have covered the Snowden documents and other whistleblowers that the government very much didn’t like,
The Snowden documents were before the anti-disinformation push of the Trump era that increased the ability to fight stories that the establishment doesn’t like.
However, this does not look like the military trying to censor this story. It seemed to cleared the prepublication review. The New York Times not printing this story might just be “we don’t think it’s good for our brand to publish stories that look wacky to part of our audience”.
FWIW Blumenthal says they went to WaPo first and that WaPo didn’t pass, but was taking too long to publish the story and that he and Kean felt “pressure” to publish faster. “The Post needed more time and we couldn’t wait.”
How do you know that?
The Snowden documents were before the anti-disinformation push of the Trump era that increased the ability to fight stories that the establishment doesn’t like.
However, this does not look like the military trying to censor this story. It seemed to cleared the prepublication review. The New York Times not printing this story might just be “we don’t think it’s good for our brand to publish stories that look wacky to part of our audience”.
FWIW Blumenthal says they went to WaPo first and that WaPo didn’t pass, but was taking too long to publish the story and that he and Kean felt “pressure” to publish faster. “The Post needed more time and we couldn’t wait.”
The main reason WaPo would have delayed is if they wanted additional confirmation/due diligence and didn’t have it.