So is the relationship between journalism and government adversarial or cooperative?

An important role of American news media is to hold government accountable for its actions, while government at all levels tends to be secretive and politically sensitive. This can lead to conflict over access to information, from the news media's point of view, and over what the news media decide to report, from government's point of view.

Despite widespread freedom of information laws, US federal, state, and local governments have become steadily more sophisticated about using media relations operations, bureaucratic hurdles, and digital technology to control what information they release and what they withhold. They have made it increasingly difficult for the news media to reach officials without going through protective press officers, and they have learned how to use social media and government websites to reach the public directly with information they believe to be favorable. News media have countered by becoming more aggressive with Freedom of Information requests, including informing the public when they are being stonewalled, and by scraping the Internet for useful data from which government performance patterns can be discerned with computer- assisted reporting.

There are times when news organizations do cooperate with government to protect human life or national security by delaying or withholding publication or broadcast of certain information, such as aspects of ongoing law enforcement activities, military actions, or covert intelligence operations. However, because of the First Amendment and the US Supreme Court decision in the Pentagon Papers case setting a very high bar for prior restraint on publication, those decisions are made by the news media alone, even after consulting with government.

In the case of the CIA's overseas secret prisons for the extralegal interrogation of terrorism suspects, for example, the executive editor of The Washington Post (this book's co-author, Leonard Downie, Jr.) decided to publish the story over strong objections made by President George W. Bush, the director of the CIA, and other senior officials in meetings at CIA headquarters and the White House. That led to the closing of the secret prisons, with the terrorism suspects brought as unlawful combatants to the military prison at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. However, Downie also decided, after the discussions with government officials, not to name the eastern European countries where the CIA prisons had been secretly located to avoid disruption of other ongoing counterterrorism cooperation.