The deeper issue is what happens to journalism when national-security institutions become major sources of both information and commentators.

Carpenter argues that the problem is especially serious because foreign-policy and military reporting already relies heavily on government sources.

Pentagon officials have access to classified information.

Intelligence agencies control enormous amounts of data.

Military officers possess specialized knowledge unavailable to ordinary reporters.

That creates a natural dependency.

Journalists need sources inside the national-security bureaucracy to report the news. But the bureaucracy also understands that controlling information can shape the resulting coverage.

Add former officials appearing as supposedly independent analysts and the system becomes even more self-reinforcing.

Government officials provide information.

Former officials interpret that information on television.

News organizations repeat the analysis.

The public hears a message that originated largely inside the same national-security ecosystem.

Carpenter’s concern is that the audience may never realize how much of the “independent” information environment actually originates from the institutions being covered.

This is not merely a Trump-era problem.

That is the central historical point of his article.

Republican administrations have used these mechanisms.

Democratic administrations have used them.

The Pentagon and intelligence agencies have institutional interests that survive changes in presidents.

The personnel rotate.

The machinery remains.

And according to Carpenter, that machinery has been operating for decades.

@americanmajority