That's a nice defense towards the straw man you constructed.
I'll repeat my point so maybe you can focus on that than the straw man.
It's not hard to find scandals, that's the whole point of having institutions meant to watchdog corporations and governments.
But of course governments/corporation will try and cover it up or deregulate said institutions, but this doesn't make an obvious adversary (Russia) a helping hand in holding the corporations /governments accountable because it's not meant to, it's meant to create cynicism and a feeling of hopelessness.
So no publishing truth is never bad, the issue is how you do it.
You take the self-contradictory position that “publishing the truth is never bad,” but in some cases “how you publish the truth” is bad. You weight the perceived interpretation by the consumer of information against the information itself. While consistent with in-your-face Russell-conjugated “news” stories and “accountability journalism,” this is practical nonsense, unjustifiable, unprincipled, and a loophole for terrible excuses that countervail the entire purpose of a successful free press.
There's no contradiction as this example will show:
If I publish an internal report that has good undercover agents doing good things but also has bad undercover agents that are acting against the country's interest, it would be absurdly dumb and reckless of me to publish the internal report as is without redacting names that has nothing to do with said bad actors.
There are correct guidelines specifically about doing whistle blowing and failing to do so can and will cause lives to be lost.
This relies on an artificial and false morality. You reference “correct guidelines.” Please cite them, and what is definitely good and bad outside a local construct within a modern Westphalian political nation state. Separately: Should nationally critical information controls survive mere legal disobedience? If they don’t how much security theater fulfills your appetite?
>This relies on an artificial and false morality
Okay this says nothing, like me telling your comment is banana-split with cherry.
>You reference “correct guidelines.” Please cite them, and what is definitely good and bad outside a local construct within a modern Westphalian political nation state.
I just told you with my example, but here's ICC's guidelines about whistleblowing:
Pretty much any whistleblowing guideline will have similar statements about whistleblowing.
>Should nationally critical information controls survive mere legal disobedience? If they don’t how much security theater fulfills your appetite?
Why do we have to present this as a black and white issue? The best is a compromise to ensure that the power abuse gets pointed out and the adversaries that are responsible be highlighted as the alleged perpetrators (as this is still something that a court has to decide on) without putting national security/innocent lives at risk/at harms way.
As mentioned, this highly-subjective, parochial, hegemonic view survives neither border crossing nor the reality that rules apply only to rule-abiders. It is non-viable in a cooperative, networked world. It enforces the lowest-common-definition of rights on the most vulnerable, while ignoring the practical reality of sophisticated malicious actors. Examine here what rules certain parties in Brazil seek to apply to X, or the contempt proceedings against Herridge domestic to the US.
You throw examples that are not whistleblowing nor does these cases have anything to do with whistleblowing guidelines but laws regarding whenever or not sources should be disclosed.
Especially the herridge case which is part of a broader case of the federal government employees allegedly leading government documents of an innocent person's information (specifically information about them from the investigation)
Even more it's not even a shut case and what a surprise the judge is also following concrete guidelines.
I suggest whistleblowing carries no particular journalistic weight. But you mentioned whistleblowing, not me. To reiterate for clarity: published truth is an unmitigated good.
I'll repeat my point so maybe you can focus on that than the straw man.
It's not hard to find scandals, that's the whole point of having institutions meant to watchdog corporations and governments.
But of course governments/corporation will try and cover it up or deregulate said institutions, but this doesn't make an obvious adversary (Russia) a helping hand in holding the corporations /governments accountable because it's not meant to, it's meant to create cynicism and a feeling of hopelessness.
So no publishing truth is never bad, the issue is how you do it.