In the wake of last weekend’s US military action in Venezuela, the US news media got something it has seldom heard from the Trump administration: a “thank you”.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio credited news organisations that had learned in advance about last Saturday’s strike that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with not putting the mission in jeopardy by publicly reporting on it before it happened.
Rubio’s acknowledgement was particularly noteworthy because US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has cited a mistrust of journalists’ ability to responsibly handle sensitive information as one of the chief reasons for imposing restrictive new press rules on Pentagon reporters. Most mainstream news organisations have left posts in the Pentagon rather than agree to Hegseth’s policy.
Speaking on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Rubio said the administration withheld information about the mission from Congress ahead of time because “it will leak. It’s as simple as that”. But the primary reason was operational security, he said.
US helicopters flying over Caracas on January 3. Photo: Reuters
“Frankly, a number of media outlets had gotten leaks that this was coming and held it for that very reason,” Rubio said. “And we thank them for doing that or lives could have been lost. American lives.”
Semafor, citing “people familiar with communications between the administration and news organisations,” reported that The New York Times and The Washington Post had both learned of the raid in advance but held off reporting on it to avoid endangering US military personnel. Representatives for both outlets declined to comment to Associated Press on Monday.