Should a news outlet publish unauthenticated information that was leaked by an unknown actor and could be the result of a foreign hack attack?
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This is the opinion of one journalist and not necessarily indicative of how others in the organization may feel.
Politico announced on Saturday that it had received internal Trump campaign documents from an unknown source. The campaign later stated that it had been hacked and blamed Iran.
As with anything coming from the former president and his campaign, any statement should be taken with a grain of salt.
However, this story broke on the heels of the publication of a Microsoft threat assessment on Friday that says Russia, Iran, and China are trying to influence the election.
“Iranian actors have recently laid the groundwork for influence operations aimed at US audiences and potentially seeking to impact the 2024 US presidential election,” the document says. “Iran’s operations have been notable and distinguishable from Russian campaigns for appearing later in the election season and employing cyberattacks more geared toward election conduct than swaying voters. Recent activity suggests the Iranian regime — along with the Kremlin — may be equally engaged in election 2024.”
When Politico asked the source how they obtained the documents, they answered: “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from. Any answer to this question, will compromise me and also legally restricts you from publishing them.”
That raises the question of whether the news outlet (and others who are sure to receive this information) should publish the material, which includes a dossier on Trump’s running mate JD Vance that was put together before he was selected, if the source of it cannot be established?
This journalist believes not.
At about this stage of the 2000 presidential race, someone leaked a videotape and documents relating to George W. Bush’s debate preparation to a confidante of Al Gore. After contacting a lawyer, the recipient turned the information over to the FBI.
That was the right thing to do.
In 2016, Donald Trump urged Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s “missing emails.” Hours later, the Kremlin launched a hack attack on the Democratic presidential candidate and her associates.
Ultimately, Russia used (or conspired with) WikiLeaks to parcel out this information instead of making it all public at once. That indicates that both the Kremlin and the “transparency organization” wanted this to be a story for as long as possible. As a result, the media dutifully covered the documents ad nauseam, giving Trump (whose campaign had also sought out “dirt” on Clinton from Russia), an important advantage.
Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018
That was the wrong thing to do for all involved.
Elections should be decided by the American people. There is already too much corporate and billionaire money involved, and social media companies have too much power over what voters see.
Publishing this information, without knowing its origin, would only invite further hack attacks and give foreign governments even more of an incentive to engage in this kind of behavior.
It would be a different matter if the documents had been obtained through investigative reporting or, at the least, if the source were known to the journalists.
That way, their authenticity could be established. But that is not the case here.
Therefore, the journalists who received this information should neither publish it nor use it to inform further reporting unless the materials indicate that a crime has been committed.
In other words, if Trump’s own opposition research team found some unreported fact about Vance, then the reporters having access to these documents should not use that information as a guide.
There may be Democrats out there who feel that turnabout is fair play and that it would be poetic justice if Trump would find himself on the receiving end of a hack after being the beneficiary of one eight years ago.
But that’s not how principles work.
