Responsible actors will try to balance security with transparency. It is not surprising that a newspaper would have a different view on where the right balance lies than the government. You might disagree with the NYT editors’ judgment, but they decided it was worth harming national security to expose government lies about the Vietnam War.

Trump’s hoarding of classified documents and refusal to give them back did nothing to increase transparency, because Trump did not make any information public. So it’s not surprising that the NYT views Trump’s actions differently than Ellsberg’s.