The public interest

Abstract

In the Age of Snowden, any editor with a robust national security team has to have the stomach to fight the White House. Bill Keller, as executive editor, had gone to the White House to hear Pres George W Bush warn that The New York Times would have blood on its hands if it published the original story about the NSA'S warrantless and then-illegal eavesdropping. Democrats, too, had called the managing editor, to implore that the Times not publish. Here, Abramson shares how journalists defy the White House, from the Pentagon Papers to Edward Snowden, for the public interest.