The leak that went too far

Via Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

Philadelphia Media Holdings got embarrassed by a Bloomberg report that revealed PMH had missed an interest payment on its $85 million in debt and had entered negotiations with its creditors to restructure the liability. PMH owns the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, the two newspapers serving the major market. This media corporation told Editor & Publisher that the information came from a conference call between PMH, its bankers, and financial analysts — and that no one should have leaked that information:

Owners of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News say someone wrongly leaked information from a private conference call earlier this week that resulted in a Standard & Poor’s report on the ownership missing an interest payment.

This is another case of the same phenomenon I have noted. Many journalists--not all--have an ethic that sees revealing information as an ethical priority, and that ends up as the moving force in news coverage as when The New York Times disseminates sensitive government secrets. However, when the shoe goes on the other foot and the release of information hurts the paper, well that's a different story. Many newspapers put a gag rule on their employees. Employees are expected to divest themselves from politics in order to help preserve the company brand.

Harm to the company is apparently more serious than harm to the nation or harm to the employee's free speech.