The New York Times' Situational Ethics

When the Climategate e-mails came to light, the New York Times refused to publish them because they had been obtained illegally. So, what about Wikileaks?

The New York Times has taken an admirable stand on the potentially-criminal release of diplomatic cables by the online "whistleblowers" at WikiLeaks. Said one Times reporter: "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here."

Oh, wait. That wasn't in reference to the WikiLeaks documents. That was the Times's former environmental blogger Andy Revkin discussing the so-called ClimateGate emails. The Times has, in fact, posted a number of American diplomatic documents obtained illegally by WikiLeaks, and containing massive amounts of sensitive diplomatic communications.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/11/29/nyt-drops-climategate-era-ethics-qualms-publishes-scores-wikileaks-d#ixzz16mDBdXQH