State Department condemns CNN for reporting contents of dead ambassador’s diary.

Days after US Ambassador Christopher Stevens died in a Sept. 11 attack in Libya, CNN found his personal journal at the scene of the attack. After promising Stevens’ family not to report on the contents of the journal, the news channel has covered it.

State Department spokesperson, Philippe Reines, announced Saturday that the CNN had reported on the personal journal despite objections from Stevens’ family, calling the media outlet’s actions “indefensible.”

Reines said that in a phone call with the family of the slain ambassador, CNN “agreed to abide by the clear wishes of the Stevens family, and pledged not to use the diary or even allude to its existence until hearing back from the family.”

But as the family had not yet made a decision regarding CNN’s use of the diary after four days, the channel appears to have grown impatient and used the information anyway.

Four days later “was as long as CNN could control themselves, so they just went ahead and used it,” Reines said. “Entirely because they felt like it.”

CNN’s Anderson Cooper first mentioned the diary Friday, after previous reports expressed Stevens’ fears that he was on an al-Qaeda hit list. While on-air, Cooper said some of the information relayed by the channel was based on the personal journal, which CNN had come across in its reporting in Benghazi. Cooper said he reported some of the information that he found newsworthy.