If a counterterrorism officer working for England’s Scotland Yard admitted to leaking an intelligence report containing al Qaeda attack plans to a British newspaper, do you think this would be newsworthy here in the States?

Well, our media certainly didn’t think so, as such occurred in a British courtroom Monday, but not one American press outlet deigned to share the information with us.

Not one.

As reported by This is London (h/t NB reader Gil Andrews, emphasis added throughout):

Thomas Lund-Lack, 59, was working in Scotland Yard's Special Operations section in the Counter Terrorism Command when he disclosed documents to a journalist.

Today he admitted misconduct in public office when he appeared at the Old Bailey.

The leaked report formed the basis for a Sunday Times article published on April 22.

It warned that al Qaida leaders in Iraq, backed by supporters in Iran, were planning large-scale attacks on Britain and the West, according to the paper.

One operative was said to have warned that he was planning an attack "on a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki" in an attempt to "shake the Roman throne", a reference to the West.

Is it possible that our media aren’t interested in letting Americans know that in Great Britain, leaking intelligence information to the press is discouraged, and that journalists actually go to jail for such a thing?

Regardless of the answer, the article continued:

Prosecutors say Lund-Lack leaked the document because he was "annoyed about the way things were being run and did what he did, he says, in the hope of improving things and bringing out the problems he believed he had seen", the judge said.

Sounds a tad like our activist media, doesn’t it? Of course, it seems likely that if a counterterrorism agent here pleaded guilty to such charges, British media would be all over it.

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.