It only matters what the motivations of the leaker were when the leak is a rumor. If the leak is an actual source document (or recording, etc.), it can stand on its own.
Unfortunately, the leaker of the information about Flynn simply started a rumor and did not substantiate it with any concrete data that would allow the public to formulate an opinion based on his actual conversation.
I disagree: even with purely factual information, neither lie nor rumour, it is possible to create a biased impression by leaving out related information.
Purely as an example, "The current US President ordered his troops to fire on American citizens" may sound outrageous, but make sense when enarged to "American citizens who have joined the Army, as part of a live-fire excercise in Texas". (I'm not familiar with how live fire excersises work, this may be a bad example, but I think it still illustrates the point even as a straw man — the point is only that withheld information can radically change the ethics of even true statements).
In addition to the points made by others, even when a leak is completely true, it can still be misleading.
Huge organizations are complicated. If you rank everything they do by how bad it looks, exclude from it everything that reflects poorly on someone other than your target and then release only the worst 99th percentile of what's left, you're basically lying even if you're technically telling the truth. The sample is intentionally biased and unrepresentative.
Because people make decisions relativistically. If you only hear about the flaws of one side, it makes that side appear to be the worse side regardless of whether or not they actually are.
> In addition to the points made by others, even when a leak is completely true, it can still be misleading.
That really hit me recently the whole comment about "The leaks are true but the news is fake" from trump.
I Immediately understood what he meant, that while the information may be true it's not the full picture and it can also be skewed by editorializing.
The fact that some in the media were outright saying "I don't know what he means by that, that makes 0 sense" is incredibly worrying that journalists can't see this.
I'm pretty sure that was the media's condensation of his statements, I don't believe he worded it that way at all. And I think the point is that much of what he calls fake news isn't at all, some disagreeable, highly partisan or otherwise biased, but also some completely accurate and correct.
And, in fact, this is what the media does with everything. How bad is crime in America? Not as bad as the evening news leads to to believe. How much of the world is at peace? Way more than the evening news makes you think.
This is something that has amazed me since I was a child, I remember my grandmother warning me of risks that she saw on the evening news (tourists kidnapped in Mexico) while continuing to participate in far more risky behavior like smoking cigarettes in bed and frequently falling asleep while cooking for example. Same goes for concern over children being abused by strangers when it is far more likely to be an individual the parents and child trust. In either case, I'm not stating that the other is unimportant, but the perceived risk is completely incongruent with the facts.
This is true, my comment was a bit hastily written. The general point I was trying to make is that compared to zero source material, leaks that are accompanied by source material are less vulnerable to fabricated embellishments, though they are still vulnerable to misleading context.
A sourced leak doesn't always stand on his own. A recording / email taken out of context can paint the target in a bad light. If someone with bad intentions and access to my emails and phone conversations would selectively release excerpts for the world to see, he could certainly ruin my life.
Unfortunately, the leaker of the information about Flynn simply started a rumor and did not substantiate it with any concrete data that would allow the public to formulate an opinion based on his actual conversation.