Stories about the Mars orbiter finding gullies and winding channels that may have recently carried liquid water first surfaced in USA Today prior to publication of the findings in the June 30 edition of Science magazine. Once the story hit the front pages, NASA scientists complained of inaccurate reports about the existence of Martian oceans and hot springs. Only then did the agency release its findings.

Clearly, these flights of fancy were irresponsible journalism. But NASA's withholding of the findings encouraged the unfounded reports.

Newspaper editors often debate whether to hold stories or print them. The problem has become especially troublesome with the rise of online publishing. This newspaper, a weekly publication, can now break news stories on its Web site. Some editors are reluctant to publish scoops on the Web for fear of alerting competitors before the print edition reaches readers. Others, myself among them, usually argue in favor of quick Web publication once a story has been nailed down.

We're in the news business and have a responsibility to our readers to publish the news as accurately and quickly as possible.

Government agencies are, of course, under no such obligation. They can spin a story however they want and time the release of good news and bad depending on their political needs. The classic news management technique is to announce bad news or controversial policies late on a Friday so reporters have a difficult time tracking down the other side of the story once business hours are over for the weekend.

NASA does the public and the scientific community a disservice by sitting on important findings like the Mars Surveyor images while making deals with scientific journals for the exclusive publishing rights to the results of taxpayer-supported research. Indeed, the publication of scientific research is increasingly driven by commercial considerations that threaten to warp the principle of scientific peer review.

What purpose was served by withholding scientific findings that carry no national security or commercial implications? Shouldn't NASA, a government agency that exists to serve the nation, have released the Mars findings as soon as possible in accordance with the rules of scientific peer review? Why give a scientific journal exclusive rights to the findings when geologists and others would be no less inclined to read the report in Science whether or not they saw the earlier newspaper stories?

NASA is a wounded agency that badly needs a success and a new direction after the inexplicable and avoidable failures of two Mars probes last year. One could surmise that the space agency was trying to orchestrate the Martian water findings for maximum public relations benefit. Having just been hammered again during a congressional hearing on the Mars failures earlier in the week, the temptation to do so must have been great.

The prospect of finding life-supporting water on Mars is intriguing news. It's too bad we didn't hear about it sooner.

George Leopold is Washington bureau chief for EE Times.