Handling of Leaked Report Raises Concerns Among Other Journalists -<br />By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM and JOHN KOBLINJUNE 6, 2017<br />Journalism in the Trump era has featured a staggering number of leaks from sources across the federal government, providing bombshell<br />revelations about everything from clandestine meetings with Russian officials to petty infighting at the White House.<br />But the arrest of Reality Leigh Winner, an intelligence contractor accused of leaking a classified report about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, has raised concerns<br />about the measures taken by news organizations to protect confidential informers, with some reporters worrying about a chilling effect on potential sources.<br />“We shouldn’t assume that if something comes in a plain brown envelope,<br />that we don’t have a very high level of duty to protect the identity of a person, even anonymous to us.”<br />President Trump, like his predecessor Barack Obama, has signaled a willingness to pursue and prosecute government leakers.<br />In an interview, Mr. Gellman said The Intercept’s scoop was “a really good story” from a professional organization<br />that “knows a lot about this stuff — they have arguably the best operational security experts in journalism over there.”<br />“So it’s baffling that they didn’t make use of them,” he added.<br />Veteran journalists did not hold back on Tuesday in criticizing The Intercept, the online news outlet<br />that published an intelligence report from the National Security Agency.
