The Press Rallies Around Seth Harp – and Misses the Point

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating

The press community has weighed in on the Seth Harp affair. What they’ve offered is a reflexive defense and a missed opportunity to address journalistic ethics.

The weigh-in comes in the form of a Jan. 13 open letter asking Congress to drop a subpoena issued to writer Seth Harp. Congress issued the subpoena after Harp posted a headshot and biography of a U.S. Army colonel. Harp identified the officer as the commander of Delta Force, the unit reported to have played a central role in the operation to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. 

The letter was signed by more than 20 organizations, including the Society of Professional Journalists and Reporters Without Borders. 

In their joint letter, the groups declare there is “zero question” that Harp’s actions were fully protected by the First Amendment and outside the scope of any federal criminal statute.

Their response treats the matter as a simple First Amendment dispute and stops there, as if invoking press freedom alone resolves the question. It does not.

READ MORE: When Exposure Carries Consequences: Seth Harp and the Line That Shouldn’t be Crossed

The Constitution broadly protects speech, including speech that is controversial, provocative, or unpopular. But legality is not the same as judgment, and the press groups’ letter ignores the distinction. 

That distinction matters. This case is not about whether Harp had the right to publish. It is about whether he exercised that right responsibly. Harp did not simply share biographical information in a vacuum. He paired the identification of a named military commander with accusations that included the killing of innocent people; and did so in the immediate aftermath of a sensitive international military operation. That context is not incidental. It is the point.

Journalism is not merely the act of reposting material that can be labeled “open source.” It is a discipline that demands judgment, restraint, and an awareness of consequence. 

The implication that Harp’s actions are beyond reproach because the information was “publicly available” is especially hollow. “Open source” is not an ethical shield; it is a sourcing category. Journalists routinely withhold names, photographs, and identifying details precisely because publication can expose individuals to danger or permanently damage reputations before facts are established. 

They could have defended the First Amendment while also affirming that journalists bear responsibility for how power is exercised. They could have stated plainly that accusing named individuals of grave crimes requires extraordinary evidentiary care. They could have acknowledged that journalists who work around military and intelligence matters carry additional obligations, precisely because exposure can have lethal downstream effects.

Instead, they offered blanket absolution.

By framing any scrutiny of Harp’s conduct as an attack on press freedom itself, the organizations collapsed an important distinction. Defending a journalist’s legal rights is not the same as endorsing his professional judgment. One can oppose government overreach without pretending that every act done under the banner of journalism is above criticism.

For decades, Soldier of Fortune has reported on conflict, warfighters, and the gray zones where politics, violence, and ideology intersect. We know firsthand that words have consequences. Exposure has consequences. Journalists who operate in this space understand, or should understand, that restraint is not cowardice and discretion is not complicity.

Press freedom is essential. But when it is invoked as a universal solvent – dissolving accountability, ethics, and judgment – it ceases to be a principle and becomes a shield.

And that serves no one. Not the public, not the profession, and not the credibility of journalism itself.

Susan Katz Keating is the publisher and editor in chief at Soldier of Fortune.