Reposting this comment with express permission of Disqus user Geneva Mike, citizen of PW:

Putting on my ex-reporter, media studies hat (former reporter for St. Louis Journalism Review) to make a few observations about the latest horror show coming from the White House:

 

1. The New York Times ‘broke’ the main story (in quotes because I’m 99% sure it was ‘fed’ to them), but with main parts mysteriously missing, such as was Trump briefed, how solid was the intelligence, etc.

 

2. Within 24-48 hours, most of the other large mainstream news organizations — such as the Washington Post, the TV networks, etc. — all started verifying previous reporting and adding juicy bits of their own to flesh out the story, such as yes, Trump WAS briefed, there have been casualties, the intel is solid, Trump did nothing, the story is actually more than a year old, etc.

 

So what does this tell us? First, that this wasn’t just a ‘leak’. It’s most likely a coordinated effort by the intel community to get this story out there. And they knew what they were doing. By spreading around the ‘goodies’ – i.e. the scoops – to different media outlets, they made sure this would be covered over all media. If they had just given everything to the New York Times, the other media would not have covered it nearly as much.

 

Second, it is almost certainly true. And there’s no way Trump comes out of this looking good. He either sold out the lives of American soldiers or was too negligent even to read his written briefings.

 

Stay tuned. And stock up on the popcorn.