At 09:11 PM 6/11/96 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:

"Neil, the government wouldn't tap the phones of American Reporters" - Hedrick Smith to his NYT colleague Neil Sheehan, while working on the Pentagon Papers project - he was incorrect, and his phones _were_ being tapped....

CSPAN-2 is doing a 25-year retrospective on the Pentagon Papers this week; Daniel Ellsberg, Hedrick Smith, and others were on tonight, with people from other sides on later this week. Cool show so far!

While I didn't pay any appreciable attention to the Pentagon Papers case at the time, it is worth noting that the only reason that it "occurred" (appeared in the media) was that a few reporters decided it was worth opposing the government. Today, this stuff would just pop up on the Internet without the approval or participation of the media: Obviously, this is a vast reduction of the influence of the media, and a corresponding increase in the power of the individual. _THIS_ is the kind of thing that the government fears; it has cultivated its relationships with the news media for many decades, and doesn't want circumstances to change. The Watergate incident is yet another one of those things which might not have "happened" without media people inclined to do it then, but that is no longer the truth today. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com