There was a sense that getting to the bottom of the Iran-Contra scandal--and facing up to the roles of President Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush in violating the Arms Export Control Act, engaging in criminal money-laundering and defying Congress on its prohibition of military aid to the contras--would not be "good for the country."
When I pressed ahead anyway, Parker complained to Thomas that I must be out "to get"- Reagan and Bush. I realized that my days at Newsweek were numbered and agreed to leave in 1990.
Ironically, however, Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh was coming to the same conclusion that I had reached, that we were witnessing a well-coordinated high-level cover-up--and the reemergence of Nixon's theories about the imperial presidency.
The "good for the country"- arguments were most prevalent when the wrongdoing was committed by Republicans. After all, the emergence of a generously funded and quite nasty right-wing news media in the 1980s and 1990s had reshaped the political dynamics of Washington.
So, for instance, in December 2000, when George W. Bush muscled his way toward the presidency by getting political allies to disrupt and then shut down a recount in Florida, the prevailing mood in the U.S. news media was that it was important for national unity to let Bush have his way.
That sentiment grew even stronger after 9/11. And it proved decisive when an unofficial Florida recount conducted by major news organizations discovered that if all legally cast votes had been counted, Al Gore would have carried the state and become President.
However, amid the super-patriotic mood after 9/11, the news executives again bent to what was supposedly "good for the country." They fashioned their story leads to focus on various hypothetical partial recounts that still would have favored Bush, while burying deep in the articles the startling fact that the wrong man was in the White House.
While framing those recount stories may have reflected the political reality of fall 2001--one could only imagine the complaints a news organization would have received if it had simply laid out the truth--the decision to contort those stories had a lasting political effect, creating the impression for many Americans that Bush was the legitimate winner in Election 2000.
That, in turn, encouraged Bush to move ahead with his increasingly grandiose view of his own righteous destiny, including his gut instinct about invading Iraq.
The miswritten election stories also gave Bush more credibility when he ran again in 2004. Some voters may have viewed him differently if they understood that he had stolen the election in 2000.
As the Bush administration ground on, there were other examples of the U.S. news media covering up presidential wrongdoing for "the good of the country."
For instance, Bush convinced New York Times executives to spike a story about warrantless wiretaps of Americans, an article that was ready before Election 2004 but which was held for more than a year and was only published then because the reporter, James Risen, was including the disclosure in a book that was about to be released. (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
Looking back at America's destructive trajectory of the past several decades, the lesson appears to be clear. Hiding or spinning the truth--even for supposedly "patriotic"- reasons--often can end up causing grave damage to a democratic Republic and simultaneously getting people killed for no particularly good reason.
Whether a government official or a news executive, the responsible act is almost always to disclose the truth. The moments when the truth legitimately should be hidden should be few and specific, such as the identity of an undercover intelligence officer or tactical details about a military project.
