I see both defense and criticism of CNN in this story. I know some readers will believe that the media should always bow to the familiy's wishes. It would be great if we could do that and still inform the public; we can't. That's not to say that the media shouldn't be as sensitive as possible to families and honor their wishes when possible. I believe Stevens' written concerns about security were newsworthy and once CNN had them, they should have reported them as they did. That said...

I'm suspicious as to how CNN obtained this journal. But the larger point of conern for me is that it appears CNN may have reported on the contents of the journal while pretending that they got the information from a living source:

Family members and U.S. officials said they were surprised when CNN anchor Anderson Cooper appeared to use the information from the journal, attributing it to a source familiar with Mr. Stevens's thinking.

In that broadcast on Wednesday, Mr. Cooper said the ambassador was worried about security threats in Benghazi and said he believed he was on an al Qaeda hit list.

If the source Cooper referred to was Stevens' Journal, he should have told viewers that. CNN claims it corroborated what was written. I'm not sure how they would corroborate someone's personal concerns written in a journal And it doesn't appear CNN was very sensitive to the family in how this journal was handled.

But I agree with CNN that the State Department has a vested intereset in Stevens' concerns not being made public. Once CNN had Stevens' journal, it seems to me this was news. It also seems they were indifferent to the family in how they got this on the air.