In my opinion, journalists had to publish the documents they had received from Snowden. Since the main idea of journalism is to keep the public informed of what is happening. The media duty is to monitor the political forces of the country, uncover injustices and corruption. The media support democracy. In the film “Citizenfour”, Edward Snowden said that now we live in a world where our everyday step is literally being tracked by the government. Items that are ordered online, google searches, emails, bank records are all being watched and stored. The government deliberately keeps track of its citizens, on the idea that is for security reasons. And even though many people possibly would agree to sacrifice their freedom to feel secured, by doing so, the government is violating the law, intruding into the personal lives of its citizens without their knowledge. “We all have a stake in this balance of power ‘the ruling and the ruled’, which is opposed to elected and the electoral,” said Snowden.
At the same time, journalists have to be very careful when publishing classified information. It is important to note that such publication will not harm a country’s foreign policy and its security.