No, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. If Snowden truly is a hero, then he has to be held responsible for the outcomes of his actions. By definition, heroism involves intent and responsibility.
Snowden was a steward of the documents, albeit taken against the will of the NSA. Relinquishing those documents to journalists he knew to be technologically uneducated (remember, he had to teach Poitras and Greenwald how to use PGP and adopt the basics of computer security) cannot, with logical consistency, be considered as placing them into authoritatively safe hands.
In most cases, information disclosed to a journalist should be considered to be disclosed to that journalists' readership.
Snowden was a steward of the documents, albeit taken against the will of the NSA. Relinquishing those documents to journalists he knew to be technologically uneducated (remember, he had to teach Poitras and Greenwald how to use PGP and adopt the basics of computer security) cannot, with logical consistency, be considered as placing them into authoritatively safe hands.
In most cases, information disclosed to a journalist should be considered to be disclosed to that journalists' readership.