To Be or Not To Be (Transparent)

By Luca Wistendahl
lw124010@ohio.edu

An Argument for The Restrained Use of Transparency

In this article, journalism professor Stephen J.A. Ward argues for the sensible use of transparency, and that transparency is not the new and only value of journalists—or at least, it shouldn’t be.

I agree with Ward on the notion that there is no one cure-all value to journalism, transparency included. In his article, Ward argues that an excess of transparency could eventually breach core values held by democratic societies. For example, he argues, a priest wouldn’t be transparent about the dialogue of a confession, nor would a lawyer be transparent about his interactions with his client. So obviously there is a point at which transparency becomes counterproductive to journalism as it strives to serve democratic society.

An Argument For Both Sides

Recently I’ve been reading No Place to Hide, by journalist Glen Greenwald, who worked with Edward Snowden to publish NSA secrets and expose massive overreach of power. No Place to Hide is Greenwald’s book on this experience. Ward’s assertion that most embedded military journalists wouldn’t disclose the location of troops makes me think about instances in journalism—specifically, American journalism—where the use of transparency relates to the concept of security. Snowden’s NSA leak, Chelsea Manning’s Wikileaks military leak and Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon papers leak are just a few examples, all of which Greenwald mentions in his book. (The hyperlink attached to Snowden’s name in this paragraph is linked to just one of several articles by several news platforms on the NSA documents).

Snowen (left) and Greenwald, from of glenngreenwald.net,
©Laura Poitras

Yet the issue of security in these instances is itself a dichotomy. While I believe that there absolutely is a proper and improper time to reveal national secrets—the latter having the potential to compromise the safety and lives of individuals— Greenwald argues that security, specifically national security, is often a buzzword abused by the government to delay or neuter journalism (according to No Place to Hide, it isn’t uncommon for the United States government to receive advanced notice about the publication of relevant articles so as to give it time to argue for security, among other things. Greenwald argues that the time the government takes to make this argument has jeopardized the timeliness of stories).

I find this interesting, as such abuse demonstrates the strain that journalists can be put under when the safety of others plays into the use of transparency. Now, it would seem, we have people like Ward arguing for an increased use of non-transparent practices, and people like Greenwald arguing for an increased, more aggressive use.

A Time And A Place

To me, this argument suggests that, like everything in life, there is a time and a place for transparency. If a journalist uses it with reckless abandon, she could be jeopardizing security, individual and/or national. Conversely, if she is hesitant to use it, she could be risking the timeliness, impact, and even the very running of a story. Transparency can achieve a lot, from exposing bias to exposing national secrets, but just because it’s powerful doesn’t mean that it is a catch-all value capable of carrying the profession of journalism.