Major U.S. news organizations were informed in advance of a Trump administration plan to carry out a military operation in Venezuela that included the seizure of the country’s president, but delayed publishing what they knew until after the operation was underway, according to reporting by Semafor. The decision by prominent newsrooms to withhold coverage has intensified scrutiny of the relationship between the American press and U.S. military power, particularly in the absence of any legal requirement to do so.
Semafor reported that The New York Times and The Washington Post learned of the planned raid shortly before it began late Friday night. President Donald Trump approved the operation at 10:46 p.m. Friday, according to the report. Two people familiar with communications between the administration and the outlets said the news organizations “held off publishing what they knew to avoid endangering U.S. troops.”
The operation, which involved the bombardment of Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro, was carried out under conditions of total secrecy until after it was completed. Administration officials later praised both the outcome and the lack of American casualties, repeatedly emphasizing the covert nature of the mission. Semafor noted that the withholding of reporting by major U.S. outlets contributed to maintaining that secrecy.
The reporting delay has raised broader questions about the role of the media in relation to U.S. military operations that legal experts and foreign leaders have widely condemned as illegal and authoritarian. Semafor described the decision by news outlets to delay publication as potential “cooperation” with the military, a characterization that has sparked renewed debate about journalistic independence. In the United States, there is no formal system allowing the government to prevent publication of sensitive information, meaning that such delays are the result of editorial judgment rather than legal obligation.
Major U.S. news organizations have repeatedly made similar decisions during past national security crises. Semafor pointed to the Times’ choice to withhold reporting on the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 at the request of the Kennedy administration. Decades later, the Times delayed for a year the publication of a major investigation into the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program, known as Stellar Wind, after the Bush administration warned that disclosure could put lives at risk.
More recently, The Atlantic withheld information about a planned U.S. attack on Yemen that later became central to the controversy known as Signalgate. The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was notified about the planned strike roughly two hours before it occurred. That attack killed 15 people, including six children and one newborn baby. Even after reporting on the existence of the Signal chat discussing the operation, Goldberg withheld some of the most sensitive information that government officials had shared.
Following the Venezuela raid, Trump administration officials publicly celebrated the mission. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth praised the operation’s execution and secrecy, saying, “The coordination, the stealth, the precision, the very long arm of American justice—all on display in the middle of the night.” Hegseth did not acknowledge that part of that secrecy stemmed from the voluntary decision by major news organizations to delay reporting.
Editorial responses in the United States further highlighted divisions in how the operation was framed. The Washington Post editorial board, which owner Jeff Bezos has recently reshaped in a more conservative direction, published an editorial praising the raid. The board described the operation, which killed at least 80 people including civilians, as an “unquestionable tactical success.” The editorial appeared amid widespread international condemnation and legal criticism of the use of force and the abduction of a sitting foreign president.
Questions about language and framing extended beyond U.S. media. UK writer Owen Jones reported that the BBC instructed its journalists to avoid using the word “kidnapped” when referring to the U.S. seizure of Maduro. According to Jones, reporters were directed to use alternatives such as “seized” or “captured,” with attribution to the U.S. government. The guidance contrasted with Trump’s own remarks, in which he said that kidnapping was “not a bad term” to describe the action.
The decisions by American newsrooms to delay coverage came amid a period of strained relations between the Trump administration and the press. Trump’s open hostility toward major media outlets has long defined his public image and has continued during his second term. At the Pentagon, new policies implemented last year forced several news organizations to vacate their press spaces as reporting restrictions tightened. At the same time, leaks of national security information have fueled some of the most significant media controversies of the administration.
Despite these tensions, Semafor reported that the choice by the Times and the Post to withhold reporting reflected what it described as a “time-honored deference” that major U.S. outlets have historically shown the White House during secret military operations. Similar restraint was exercised as recently as last August, when American media delayed reporting on a prisoner exchange with Russia involving Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
Spokespeople for the White House, the Pentagon, and The Washington Post declined to comment on the communications between government officials and journalists ahead of the Venezuela raid. A spokesperson for The New York Times did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hegseth emphasized its execution, saying, “The coordination, the stealth, the precision, the very long arm of American justice—all on display in the middle of the night.”
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