US news organisations are facing accusations of complicity after it emerged that they bowed to pressure from the Obama administration not to disclose the existence of a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia despite knowing about it for a year.

Amid renewed scrutiny over the Obama administration's secrecy over its targeted killing programme, media analysts and national security experts said the revelation that some newspapers had co-operated over the drone base had reopened the debate over the balance between freedom of information and national security.

On Tuesday, following Monday's disclosure by NBC of a leaked Justice Department white paper on the case for its controversial targeted killing programme, the Washington Post revealed it had previously refrained from publishing the base's location at the behest of the Obama administration over national security concerns.

The New York Times followed with its own story on the drone programme on Wednesday, and an op-ed explaining why it felt the time to publish was now.

One expert described the initial decision not to publish the base's location as "shameful and craven".

Dr Jack Lule, a professor of journalism and communication at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, said that the national security implications did not merit holding on to the story.

"The decision not to publish is a shameful one. The national security standard has to be very high, perhaps imminent danger," he said. "The fact that we are even having a conversation about whether it was a national security issue should have sent alarm bells off to the editors. I think the real reason was that the administration did not want to embarrass the Saudis – and for the US news media to be complicit in that is craven."

 

Goes along with the judges ruling basically saying the govt stance is "we need to break the constitution or law but, we also claim national security reasons for not saying why"!!

The fact is the base location was published several times in the past years.  The Times of London reported over a year and a half ago that the US was launching drone strikes from inside of Saudi Arabia. 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article3105002.ece

Fox News also reported on the secret base in 2011

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/21/obama-administration-building-new-drone-bases-in-horn-africa-saudi/

Their original version was scrubbed after going up (replacing Saudi Arabia with Arabian Penisula), but the version with the original Saudi mention is still available on their mobile site.

North America Inter Press Service also published details of the secret base in 2011

http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=3834

UPI had a story published in 2011

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/09/22/Secret-bases-mark-step-up-in-War-on-Terror/UPI-62051316716652/

Iranian news sources also posted information about the base in an effort to pressure Riyadh to close it down

http://abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=250545

So the extent to which this was a secret is certainly in question.  That certain US news sources didn't publish details on it, isn't such a big deal as some are making this out to be.  Relations with Saudi Arabia are complex are certainly widespread knowledge that Riyadh was allowing the US to launch drone strikes from the "holy land" could have caused severe complications for the program especially since the US had no desire to put troops in Yemen which was the primary target for those strikes. 

In response to DamainAllen's comment:

LOL oh ok so, what they did was ok because you could find it from UK, Iranian and other foreign outlets!

Hold on...is the claimed problem simply that they didn't provide the coordinates of the base and provide a picture for the terrrorists?

If Damain is right, I don't understand what the fuss is. I mean...if they are reporting that there is a base there and drone strikes are being launched from that base, why do I even care where precisely in Saudi Arabia it is?

What do I do with that information? TMI...   

 

It's like a paper reporting on an Obama speech. Tell me what he said, not what color tie he was wearing.

In response to tvoter's comment:

Fox News is a foreign outlet? Ahhhhhhhhhh, now it's starting to make sense.

 

In response to DamainAllen's comment:

 

In other words, you won't always look like such a putz if you actually bother to read the entire post before responding.

"That certain US news sources didn't publish details on it, isn't such a big deal as some are making this out to be..."

So under Bush, Washington Post and NY Times authors won Pulitzer Prizes for disclosing top secret information.

Under Obama, both papers withheld such information.

The hypocrisy is so astounding it's sick-making.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/02/07/nyt-and-wapo-knew-about-secret-drone-base-saudi-arabia-and-agreed-not#ixzz2KESsSuBW

In response to ComingLiberalCrackup's comment:

It goes to the credibility of the press.

Under Bush, their role wasa watch dog.  If secret information allowed them to better watchdog the Bush/cheney/Rove regine, all the better.

 

Under Obama, the role of the press is to diseminate the information that the progressive Obama administration deems necessary.  Occassionally, someone in the press goes off that reservation, and then they are shoved into a coat room (really happened) until the pressevent is over.

In this case, it seems that some of the information was out there, the obama administration indicated to the press they didn't want it out there, and they dutifully either changed or attempted to diminish the impact.

If this happened in the Bush administration, the coordinates of the base would be the headline of the New York Times.

First, because you folks on the right have been conditionexd to beleive EVERYTHING is a conspiracy (SkeetGate anyone) its important to keep in mind certain facts.  The US opoerates dozens of secret facilities around the globe for various purposes.  Are you upset that you don't know what those are, and where they are?  Have your rights been violated in anyway because the government has certain things that are kept secret (often times to preserve confidentiality with host countries, maintain operational security, or mimimize risks that American soldiers could be killed?)  Nothing about the base was extra legal, the security around it was to largely protect the host country from internal reprisals, riots, etc. 

The idea that the base was "secret" was a farce, even US sources reported on it.  If nothing else the CIA asked for the blackout to maintain the ability to conduct the missions. 

Seems like the wingnuts want us publish national security secrets on the front page of the times. Aye!!

The fact that Fox  right winger Geraldo Rivera and his cameramen revealed the location of American soldiers when they invaded Iraq and put them in serious jeopardy has been forgotten by the right wing.

In response to WhatDoYouWantNow's comment:

Likewise, Tool. "Fox news later removed the article"