While listening to Hillary Clinton speech on Pakistan and Afghanistan at Asia Society in New York on February 18, I wanted to ask her if Raymond Davis, an American held in Lahore for shooting and killing two Pakistanis, was a CIA agent as one blogger reported.

Clinton left quickly that afternoon without taking any question. Two days later, the Guardian in Britain reported Davis’ CIA identity. It revealed that major US news organizations have deliberately withheld the information from the public at the request of the Obama administration. The Guardian, which also received the request, chose to disobey.

The following day, both New York Times and Washington Post confirmed Guardian’s report. However, neither of them showed any regret in misleading readers in their weeks of reporting of the issue since the shooting happened on January 27.

Feeling betrayed as a loyal reader and a fellow journalist, I vented my anger in an email to Arthur Brisbane, the public editor at the New York Times. The reply from his office mentioned that I was not the only one protesting.

However, when Brisbane tried to justify the Times’ deeds this past Sunday on Times' website, his totally unapologetic tone has made people angrier as evidenced by the hundreds of comments posted by readers.

Brisbane’s excuses are hardly convincing. Two of the three people cited in his article to justify the action are Dean Baquet, the Washington bureau chief of New York Times and Bob Woodward, the associate editor of the Washington Post. Both would have little credibility to judge on this particular issue due to their conflict of interest.

The Times has repeated said that it did so out of concern for Davis’ safety, as requested by the State Department. So while Obama described Davis as “our diplomat in Pakistan”, all the US media agreed to tell the same lie.

But if that kind of excuse is justified, the Times and major US news organization should withhold many stories on a daily basis since many stories might jeopardize the life of someone directly or indirectly either in the US or another country.

New York Times is not the worst in the case despite the lack of courage to admit such a blunder.  Other major US media outlets which had concealed the information from the public, such as Washington Post, Associated Press and ABC, have not yet openly discussed the issue.

If US news media are known for going after scandals, the past few days have been extremely quiet for major US news organizations in pursuing a scandal conducted by them. Such a conspiracy is simply another scandal after the previous concealment scandal.

Most Americans trust major US media outlets more than they trust anyone else. That is why Al-Jazeera English, a 24-7 TV network that does great journalism in covering world news, especially the Middle East and the Muslim world, is still struggling to persuade major US cable companies to carry its signal.

The Financial Times reported on Friday that Al Anstey, managing director of Al-Jazeera English, has collected 40,000 emails from Americans, urging US cable companies to carry its signal. At the moment, only small cable companies in Washington, Burlington of Vermont and Toledo of Ohio broadcast Al-Jazeera.

One Columbia University journalism professor I met for lunch recently told me that Al-Jazeera English’s news reporting is too good that major US networks would worry losing viewers if Al-Jazeera is carried by major cable companies.

For many Americans who are still suffering from the post 911 paranoid or Islamic phobia, they often look at the Arabic name of Al-Jazeera with suspicion and even hostility despite the fact that the Doha-based English language broadcaster is held high in the journalism circle and many parts of the world.

With major US media organizations collaborating with the government in hiding information from readers, it shows how important it is for Americans to have access to news sources from other parts of the world.