It's a real problem in this day and age of "fake news". Used to be a Daniel Ellsberg would steal state secrets and then be protected for a while by being an anonymous source of a powerful member of "the fourth estate." Now the fourth estate can be any one with an internet connection, including Russians trying to bring down the west. Further complicating that whole thing is that the most powerful country in the world has a leader who has co-opted the whole "fake news" plaint, implying that most remaining members of what was once powerful "fourth estate" are the fake news and the partisans on his side furnish the real news.

I knew and dreaded instinctively that, when during the Bush years the new left blogosphere picked up and pushed the right's meme that the "MSM" was crap if not evil, and that citizen journalism would save the day and tell the truth, that it would not end pretty. I couldn't imagine the extent of the resulting anarchy, though.

Either you agree to have a government that's going to need to keep some things secret or you don't. Everyone can't leak everything....Assange's theory of transparency uber alles working is bullshit...you will always have Facebook's and Amazon's just filling in the gap (at least Bezos put money into shoring up having a professional fourth estate by supporting Washington Post, I'll give him that.)