March 26, 2007: Former Los Angeles Times Editor Denies Decision Not to Publish NSA Wiretapping Story Came in Wake of Government Pressure

Former Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet says his newspaper did not bow to government pressure in choosing not to run a story about allegations by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein (see July 7, 2009, December 15-31, 2005, and February 11, 2006 and After). In an ABC News report on Klein’s allegations of AT&T’s complicity with the National Security Agency (NSA) to illegally conduct warrantless electronic surveillance against American citizens, Klein says that the Times bowed to government pressure from the then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and the then-Director of the NSA Michael Hayden. Baquet, now the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, says that while he spoke to both Negroponte and Hayden about the story, “government pressure played no role in my decision not to run the story.” Instead, Baquet says he and managing editor Doug Frantz decided “we did not have a story, that we could not figure out what was going on” based on Klein’s highly technical documents. Baquet says Times reporter Joseph Menn disagreed with his decision, “and was very disappointed.” Klein’s story was published in the New York Times in April 2006 (see April 7, 2006 and April 12, 2006). [ABC News, 3/26/2007] Klein will later write that Baquet’s explanation is an “absurd and flimsy excuse,” and will say it is obvious that the Los Angeles Times “capitulated to government pressure.” [Klein, 2009, pp. 62]