I think both Wired and Greenwald are operating ethically. Greenwald is right to be, as a reporter, skeptical and demanding of more evidence. Wired, unfortunately, is caught in a position where they may well be acting completely ethically but can't explain why without violating someone's privacy and trust.
They both may be doing the right thing here. I hope I am right and we really do have two pretty good journalistic organizations operating with good intentions.
Can you elaborate on your theory of why Wired is justified in withholding the chat logs? What about the matter of not disclosing all ties to their sources -- do you think there is an ethical reason for that? Why counter-attack Greenwald if they know his accusations are justified, from the public perspective?
No, unfortunately I can't without further eroding someone's privacy if I'm right and if I'm right Wired is in the same position, which is part of why they can't really explain themselves to everyone's satisfaction.
As for disclosing ties, yeah, I agree they might have gotten a bit sloppy there, but reporters cultivate personal relationships with sources all the time. I don't necessarily see that as a dealbreaker. But it seems sloppy at worst.
I think they need to defend themselves from Greenwald's articles because he is making people hate them. Unfortunately to actually defend themselves would be to explain why they have to hold the information private, which they can't really do, without spoiling people's privacy.
I think we need to give Wired some trust on this one.
Imagine the portions of the logs not released by Wired and the Washington Post include Manning discussing his sex life, opinions about other as-yet-uninvolved private individuals or active duty personnel, medical/psychological details, or cable contents even Wikileaks hasn't (and might choose not to) release. Further, that the logs aren't conclusive either way on Lamo's other statements, perhaps because the logs Wired has are only some of the Manning/Lamo communication.
Then Poulsen/Wired's selective disclosure is perfectly reasonable, and there's no journalistic obligation to play '20 questions' confirming/denying every hunch Greenwald has about the logs, or release a meticulously 'redacted' set of logs which could just set off more wild speculation about the redacted regions.
They made a call about what excerpts were newsworthy, and have stuck to it. Even if they erred around the edges, with a few other sentences having some interest to those with a compulsive interest in coloring in every detail — well, opinions vary and errors happen. It wouldn't help to trickle out new marginal details in response to Greenwald's barbs.
What personal private details could outweigh critical info about a huge news story? If they really are compromising their integrity as journalists to be good loyal friends, they can expect and deserve to be criticized as bad journalists.
And if they refuse to even explain themselves then nobody can be blamed for assuming the worst. And I can imagine scenarios worse than just protecting someone's privacy. The "we can't tell you why we can't tell you" excuse is as good as nothing.
Are you suggesting that once a news story is 'huge' it outweighs any claim to privacy involved individuals might have? Neither Wired nor Greenwald believes that.
I gave examples of the kinds of personal info that might justify privscy-preserving selective log publishing: sex life, discussion of uninvolved peers, and medical/psychological details. Your imagination should be able to fill in the rest.
Wired has explained themselves and no part of their explanation talks about being 'good loyal friends'.
They both may be doing the right thing here. I hope I am right and we really do have two pretty good journalistic organizations operating with good intentions.