Trump Administration Has Rare Reaction to Media on Venezuela

In the wake of last weekend's US military action in Venezuela, the news media got something it seldom hears from the Trump administration: a thank you. Secretary of State Marco Rubio credited news organizations that had learned in advance about last Saturday's strike leading to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with not putting the mission in jeopardy by publicly reporting on it before it happened, per the AP. Rubio's acknowledgment was particularly noteworthy because Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has cited a mistrust of journalists' ability to responsibly handle sensitive information as one of the chief reasons for imposing restrictive new press rules on Pentagon reporters.

Most mainstream news organizations have left posts in the Pentagon rather than agree to Hegseth's policy. Speaking on ABC's This Week on Sunday, Rubio said the administration withheld information about the mission from Congress ahead of time because "it will leak. It's as simple as that." The primary reason was operational security, he said. "Frankly, a number of media outlets had gotten leaks that this was coming and held it for that very reason," Rubio said. "And we thank them for doing that, or lives could have been lost. American lives."

Semafor, citing "people familiar with communications between the administration and news organizations," reported that the New York Times and Washington Post had both learned of the raid in advance but held off reporting on it to avoid endangering US military personnel. Representatives for both outlets declined comment on Monday. Withholding information on a planned mission for that reason is routine for news groups, says Dana Priest, a longtime national security reporter at the Post.

Decisions on whether to report information that could put lives or a mission in danger often involve high-level discussions between editors and government officials. But Priest stresses that in a country with freedom of the press, the ultimate decision on whether to report the information lies with the news organization. Many mainstream journalists covering the military and national security have extensive experience dealing with sensitive issues, Priest notes. But there's a difference, she says, between reporting information that could put someone in danger, and that which could prove embarrassing to an administration. More here.