2021-11-06 : Radio New Zealand , Saturday Morning , Kim Hill interviewing Daniel Ellsberg (the Pentagon Papers ) with the main focus on the case of Julian Assange.
20211106 Radio New Zealand : Saturday Morning : Kim Hill . Daniel Ellsberg Interview.
Veteran journalist and whistleblower ( Pentagon Papers ) Daniel Ellsberg speaking to Kim Hill - about the Media's relationship with the Secrecy State :
" You're raising these points very interestingly about the media.
I don't usually get around to saying this criticism, but you've sort of invited me to it.
I'll say one thing further.
I think the press has a symbiotic relationship with the secrecy system.
They've never really investigated it. Nor does Congress. And found out how abusive it really is - and how little of what is actually secret deserves to be kept from the public
Very little . And I'm talking not about 50% I'm talking as an informed estimate made by an expert in the Pentagon
95% should not be held from the public - does not have that need.
So there is not a presumption that it really hurts national security to put out a classified piece of information
But when an official does that , every day of the week , to a favoured reporter, for one reason or another : his own aggrandizement, more often for an official to get support for a particular policy or a particular administration They're always giving out classified information That gives that reporter a scoop.
It's not being declassified when he gets that or she gets that. It's not being put out in a press conference where everybody has it.
They have an exclusive, - because its secret
Next week the same official will give a secret to a competitor . But that's alright because if you're a good boy or girl here and you're nice to your sources and you don't criticize them . You get back in the office again the week after that and you get your second exclusive.
Well. This is an arrangement that is fine for the press.
They don't work on the subject of giving a lot of information to the public as they should by changing this secrecy system and challenging it.
Across the board.
They never have done that."
Kim Hill : "As Janet Malcolm said . The journalist is not your friend."