[h2odragon]

The difference between a journalist and a spy, then, is the size of their audience?

[MerelyMortal]

And their employeer. It seems that journalists also cultivate sources and use some spycraft in communications. One does so for their government/country, the other for their newspaper.

[jhbadger]

John le Carré (the late novelist who was a British intelligence officer in the 1960s) was once asked why states have intelligence agencies when investigative journalists often do the same sorts of things and often report the same information spies do, and he responded that while this is often the case, the problem is that governments tend not to listen to journalists.