BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

The recent stream of classified information leaks compromise our national security on a number of fronts, and they only add to the crisis in public trust in government, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Watergate.

While the main body of leaks is investigated by Congress and the Justice Department there are several subplots, or as lawyers and editors like to call them, sidebars to this sad saga that should not go unattended.

The first is the misuse of anonymous sources. It has reached epidemic proportions among traditional and new media. Those journalists, or pseudo journalists, who use them have absolutely no public oversight. The users and abusers answer to no one, except in some cases, a faceless, nameless editor who may be as much a participant in the misuse as the reporters. We don’t get to judge.

One of the recent leak stories in the Washington Post said the information came from “Western officials with knowledge of the effort”. Really? ‘Western’ meaning maybe the Western Hemisphere, which covers half the globe, and ‘officials’ meaning more than one individual with some official capacity like president of the French American chamber of commerce or a 3^rd level disgruntled bureaucrat in Interpol? What an insult to the reading public. The story went on to quote a “former high-ranking U.S. intelligence official, which brings the source closer to home, but in this instance the source was not identified as anyone with “knowledge the effort”, as was the first source, so one step forward and one back. Further on, the reporter quotes “several U.S. and Western officials” taking us back to square one.

The New York Times said it interviewed “three dozen…current and former advisers to Obama,” but Obama adviser David Axelrod insisted unequivocally that none of the leaks came from the White House. Three dozen? None from the White House? It is odd that given that broad a description of the leakers, that Axelord can be absolutely sure none was in the White House, unless, of course Axelrod knows exactly who did the leaking. If he knows, then does that place him among the co-conspirators? Does that also speak to the partisan, political motivation behind the leaks?

Anonymous sources do provide the media with an important tool in exposing information the public should know. But with everything else in politics and life, there should be constraints, oversight and responsibility exercised.

Too many sources go on background because they have an axe to grind or they want to do someone in or they are advancing the agenda of an individual or organization. In those cases, they should not be granted anonymity or at least, the public should be told something about the motivation and the vested interests behind of the source.  In the case of classified information, we or someone we trust, should know a whole lot more.

A reporter or editor or producer or broadcast correspondent should be prepared to meet very rigorous standards of public trust, imposed by the institution for which he or she works or by the government, if necessary, and certainly by the reading, viewing and listening public. Reporters who abuse the use of anonymous sources should be prepared to pay dearly for a compromising national security. The disclosure of classified information in the public interest must meet the highest standards of ethics and public trust, and today they do not. The abuse of anonymous sources is an embarrassment to the journalistic profession and an insult to the First Amendment.

A second element of the leaks saga, also involves the media.

It is the strange collusion, conspiracy, manipulation, financial collaboration—call it what you will–involved in journalists who write books, which are hyped on the front pages and news shows of the newspapers or broadcasters for whom they work, conveniently enough, right before publication.

It seems innocent enough at first glance, a good marketing technique for the book, the author, and the newspaper or broadcast company. But then you realize that in many cases, as was the case with at least one leak story, the journalist who wrote the book deliberately withheld major, breaking news in order to preserve the story for the book promotion and maximize their own profits at a later date.

When you think about the Washington Post or the New York Times involving themselves in a “cover-up” of that nature, you wonder just what are the financial arrangements between a newspaper and a doubling-down journalist/author? To borrow from a journalistic principal, the public does have a right to know the circumstances under which news is produced and reported.

I was struck by the revelation in the recent Woodward-Bernstein article, 40 years after Watergate, in which they complained to Editor Ben Bradlee, who insisted on publishing information they wanted withheld to promote the book. Good for Ben Bradlee.

A similar phenomenon goes on regularly on broadcasts such as the NBC Nightly News, which exaggerate the importance of a story to justify its use n the evening news show, when in fact it is nothing more than a promotion for an upcoming news magazine. That was the case for an extended story on the ABC evening news June 20,th when breathless Diane Sawyer turned the broadcast over to Chris Cuomo for a lengthy interview with Rielle Hunter, the love interest of John Edwards (and you thought we were done with Edwards? Not so, she’s written a book).

The interview wasn’t deserving of a second on an evening news show. As it turned out, it was a cheap promotion of her appearance on 20/20.

Finally, there is the predictable partisan debate over the appointment of a special prosecutor or independent counsel. We never seem to come to terms with what criteria should be used.

You would think we could arrive at logical and common sense reasons, beyond those relative to a threat to national security identified in the Espionage Act. Here are some: (a) is there the prospect that the President is culpable; (b) is the Justice Department compromised in some way; (c) are the allegations of such a profound and troubling nature that they cannot be resolved to the public’s satisfaction without an extra-ordinary process; and (d) do the circumstances and/or the accused have unique characteristics that make it difficult to prosecute in a normal judicial environment, as has been the case with terrorist suspects, for example. Those are simple enough criteria that could be balanced against the cost, duration, integrity, make up and desired outcome of an independent investigation. As Patrick Fitzgerald proved to us in the Valerie Plame investigation, without restraints taxpayers can get taken for a real joy ride.  He wasted millions in taxpayer dollars uncovering information he already had at his disposal before the investigation began.

Instead of making a reasoned judgment about the need for an independent investigation, what we get from our politics is–excuse the expression—a pissing contest between partisans who would rather exploit the incident than uncover its truths and falsehoods. We end up with some nasty headlines, more in the game of victims and villains, and nothing recuperative for the body politic.

The more you delve into the incidents and circumstances that cause the decline in public confidence in government, the more you realize that the problems we all share are a web so tangled, a hole so deep, and a matrix so complex, we can’t wait too much longer to begin the exhaustive and difficult path toward transformational change in the way we govern ourselves.

Editor’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff. He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.