Given the move-fast-and-break-things mentality of the second Trump administration, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg may not be the last journalist accidentally looped into top-secret war plans.

While nothing comes close to the jaw-dropping breach that Goldberg wrote about Monday, much lower-stakes breaches have happened in the past, and the ethical playbook is the same. Lawyers have released unredacted documents, rather than redacted versions. Officials sometimes use weak technology to redact information. Journalists have received emails intended for someone else. 

We in journalism should be prepared for fresh varieties of this self-inflicted government leaking. What if, say, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decides to plan out a national ban on antidepressants and he starts by getting input from his pals on NextDoor? Or what if the acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration convenes a brainstorm on addressing the recent spate of near misses via Instagram group chat and your mom gets an invite? Should you look over her shoulder?

No matter how ludicrous the scenario, journalists need to think through the ethical implications. Here’s a framework of questions journalists should ask themselves as they figure out what to do should they encounter another careless (or maybe it’s intentional, who knows?) release of information.

Is this real?

That was Goldberg’s first question. Even in his column, he allows for the possibility that the conversation was a trap. There are many ways to confirm authenticity. They might include direct communication with someone in the group chat or a source on their staff, and verifying publicly known details, like the fact that Vice President JD Vance mentioned a political event in Michigan.

If attempts to verify details turn up inconsistency or doubt, that should be considered a big red flag. Remember the Trump dossier in 2017? Journalists trying to verify the information found it, at best, unreliable. When BuzzFeed released it, the credibility of the entire news media took a hit.

Goldberg began to suspect the messages were real when the details contained in them — potential war strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen — began to happen. He later attempted to confirm the strikes with the officials purported to be in the group chat. Eventually, he heard from Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, who confirmed the chat was real.

What’s my first principle?

Seek the truth and report it as fully as possible. This is not an argument for publishing or posting the entire conversation. But this principle points you in the direction of telling your audience what you’ve confirmed to be true.

Accidentally obtained information should be treated in the same manner as highly sensitive leaked documents. It must be handled with care. But it’s not off-limits. 

Goldberg and a colleague didn’t just report the comedy of errors, which would have been entertaining but not necessarily informative to the average news consumer. They analyzed the other options available for high-level officials to conduct such conversations, consulted with legal and national security experts and added historical context (including the fact that Donald Trump and other Republicans wanted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent to prison for keeping sensitive information on a private email server.)  

To whom do I owe loyalty?

A journalist’s first loyalty is to the public they serve. Goldberg’s story gives the public previously unseen insight into the president’s foreign policy decision-making process. It’s highly relevant to Americans to see top officials arguing in favor of, and against, using military force to secure shipping lanes in and around the Suez Canal. 

But journalists also owe loyalty to the people and families who might be put at risk by sensitive information, as well as the interests of national security. However, these secondary loyalties don’t eclipse the primary loyalty. 

Goldberg didn’t publish everything. And he explained why. “I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts,” he wrote. “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel.”

This type of self-restraint is perhaps the strongest argument in favor of the ethics of a self-policing profession. There’s a long history of who can be held criminally responsible when information is leaked to the press. It’s not the journalists who receive the information. 

Instead, journalists balance the interests of national security with the public’s right to know. 

Whether it’s the Washington Post investigation into secret CIA torture sites or ProPublica’s investigations into the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, newsrooms reporting on issues of national intelligence often navigate these pressures. 

Am I obligated to reveal my presence?

While journalists should not actively deceive or lie in pursuit of the truth, they are not obligated to inform powerful people of their mistakes, particularly when those mistakes offer a window into matters of public importance.

Goldberg voluntarily left the conversation as it became clear it was real and that he was receiving highly sensitive information that could compromise the security of troops or others and which he was not qualified to protect. 

That’s not a bad call, but it wasn’t clear-cut either. Some argue he should have stayed. The more consequential the national security implications, the greater your obligation as a journalist to move on to the last and final question.

How can I minimize harm?

Just because you can publish information doesn’t mean you should. Goldberg and his team used their own expertise, as well as the advice of others, as they determined which information to hold back on.

They also reached out to the people who were primarily responsible for keeping the information secure. In this area, it’s on the journalist and the newsroom to be fully informed about the potential for harm and to take steps to minimize that harm. 

As weird as this particular leak was, it probably won’t be the last. Just remember, do your due diligence first, then cue the record scratch plus, “Yup, that’s me” meme.