Pulitzers don’t make Snowden a hero

Monday’s Twitter blizzard of Pulitzer congratulations has given way to questions yesterday about the significance of Pulitzer prizes going to reporters who published the Edward Snowden revelations about the National Security Council.

I have no problem with the Pulitzers.  All professions celebrate themselves:  diplomats do it, the intelligence community does it, universities do it, business does it.  Why shouldn’t media give themselves awards?  Certainly the revelations made big headlines and generated much discussion, both within the US and abroad.  What is news about if not big headlines and lots of talk?

Here is where I dissent:  Barton Gellman, one of the Pulitzer recipients, said this on NPR yesterday morning:

Our publication of material that Snowden gave us was our judgment that Snowden did the right thing by telling us what he told.

The Washington Post is entitled to its view on whether Snowden did the right thing, but there is really no need for them to make that judgment in order to publish the material.  They only needed to find it newsworthy.  Nor is there any need for me to accept their judgment.

It is not the media or the Pulitzer committee that should judge what Snowden did.  The main judgment should come from the courts, which are now considering what the government was up to in its collection programs and should also consider what Snowden did.  You may think Snowden a whistle-blower, but the only way of knowing whether he is or not is for him to return to the US and face a jury of his peers.  He may continue to refuse to do that, and prefer to be sheltered by a government whose behavior he surely knows is at least as bad as that of the one he fled, but that doesn’t make him a hero.  It makes him a fugitive.

Let me be clear:  I am not suggesting that the journalists involved did anything wrong.  The government is responsible for protecting its own secrets.  The press in the US is entitled to publish them.  I might wish they had shown more discretion, but they have a right to decide what to publish and what to withhold, which need have nothing to do with whether they thought Snowden justified or not.

Even if he does not return to the US, Snowden will eventually be judged by history, when we know more about why he did what he did rather than pursue other channels available as well as what his relationship has been to the foreign governments that have hosted and protected him.  I obviously have suspicions on those scores–I don’t claim to be neutral in the matter.  I wish the journalists involved had pursued these questions more vigorously than they have.  But I am willing to wait for my answers.

The issue of Snowden’s justification, or not, has nothing whatsoever to do with the Pulitzers, Barton Gellman or other journalists.  They did their job well by the standards of their profession and should be left to enjoy the prizes that come their way.  But they should not tell me that Snowden did the right thing.  That’s for you and me, courts of law, and history to decide.

PS:  To help with your decision about how Snowden is to be judged, here is what President Putin and Edward Snowden had to say today (April 17):