Edward Snowden published top-secret material about (illegal) surveillance being done by the NSA. Regardless of whether or not what the NSA was doing, the activities were highly classified. That is not the same things as reporting; you’ll note that the reporters and newspapers that published what Snowden leaked (The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, others) didn’t face any reprisals from the US gov’t, just Snowden; that’s likely because the US gov’t already lost that fight in NYT v. US in 1971.