Eli Lake, Columnist

The New Threat of 'Leak-Flavored' Propaganda

A Wall Street Journal reporter lost his job when real documents told a false story. That should scare us all.

March 20, 2018 at 12:00 PM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

1521483860_GettyImages-75889835 — Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images

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Last June the Associated Press published details of what appeared to be a scandal: The Wall Street Journal's star national security correspondent, Jay Solomon, had been offered a stake in a startup by one of his sources, an Iranian-born arms dealer named Farhad Azima.

The AP story was not based on anonymous sources, but rather texts and emails between Solomon, Azima and others. In one text, Solomon wrote: "our business opportunities are so promising." The reporter was fired. The case was closed.