The Melber walkout
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The Melber walkout was an incident during a recorded MSNBC segment in which John Kiriakou removed his microphone and told the host he was leaving. It is the sharpest episode in the long dispute over whether he is described as a whistleblower or a leaker.

The host, Ari Melber, introduced him not only as a leaker but as a convicted felon. Kiriakou's reply was immediate: "Okay, if you're going to play games like that, I'm walking", and he took his microphone off. The segment was being taped in advance rather than broadcast live, and Melber apologised and asked what he objected to.

What Kiriakou objected to was the pairing of the framing with the subject matter. "You brought me on here with Daniel Ellsberg of all people, the godfather of all whistleblowers, to talk about whistleblowing. And then you introduced me as a leaker and convicted felon."

He places the episode within a wider pattern he has tracked across the networks: it took his attorneys a full year to get CNN to stop calling him a leaker, Fox News used the word whistleblower from the beginning, and MSNBC has never changed.

See also

- Leaker versus whistleblower
- Daniel Ellsberg
- John Kiriakou
