The Provenance Of True, Newsworthy Information Shouldn’t Matter (Much) To Journalists

Some reflections on the alleged Iranian hack of the Trump campaign

There’s been a fair amount of chatter over a guy who called himself “Robert,” who, as CNN explained last week, “sent a trove of private documents from inside Donald Trump’s campaign operation to journalists at Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post.”

The leaked documents — sent from “Robert’s” AOL account! — appear to have centered mostly on the Trump campaign’s vetting of eventual VP pick J.D. Vance, and the media outlets got hold of them shortly after Joe Biden stepped down from his reelection campaign. That was more than a month ago, but none of the outlets have done anything with the materials. As the CNN article explains, that might be partly because it is believed that “Robert” is connected to the Iranian government, which allegedly obtained the documents by hacking into the Trump campaign’s emails. 

That being said, we don’t know exactly what drove the decision. It also might be that the documents are too boring to report on (or TBTRO — let’s try to make that a thing). Politico and the Post responded to CNN’s request for comment, and both quotes mention the provenance issue but clearly leave TBTRO open as a possibility.

Either way, this has sparked a media-ethics conversation about what journalists should do with hacked materials, and particularly hacked materials from a source that is morally compromised and/or has potentially nefarious motives. A fair number of journalists seem to think the fact that information was initially obtained via hacking is, prima facie, a solid reason not to publish it. I really don’t understand this argument.