Imagine If The NY Times Had Ignored Wikileaks Cables
from the how-would-that-have-looked dept
Yesterday, Senator Joe Lieberman said that the NY Times should be "investigated" for publishing articles with some content from the State Department's leaked cables. In response,one of the reporters, who worked on the articles about the Wikileaks release, David Sanger, points out the obvious: how would it have looked if the NY Times ignored the story:"The Times knew that this material was going to be out there anyway. We didn't get the initial leak," he says. "If we had done nothing — if we had ignored it -- I think it would have looked strange. I think that also would have been irresponsible. It is the responsibility of American journalism, back to the founding of this country, to get out and try to grapple with the hardest issues of the day and to do it independently of the government."Sanger also notes that the role of reporting in such cases is to try to put that information in context:
"We had to explain how this changed America's position in the world," he says. "Just as in the publication of the Pentagon Papers decades ago, when we had to explain how those documents, which also leaked, enabled us to understand very differently a war that America was in very deeply."This is an important point, though I think he overplays how much people actually relied on the NY Times reporting for such info. There are some folks out there who say that "Wikileaks isn't journalism" but I agree with Mathew Ingram that Wikileaks is absolutely a media entity. It's just that, as with other areas of other industries, the roles may be shifting. Wikileaks gets data out there and then anyone can help add the context. That seems a lot more valuable than the traditional gatekeeper system where we only get to hear what the gatekeepers want us to hear.
Either way, having the NY Times ignore the story because Senator Lieberman doesn't like it would have looked a hell of a lot more questionable than it doing its job as a part of the press and actually reporting on the info that's out there.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: journalism, wikileaks
Companies: ny times, wikileaks
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Wikileaks redacts and censors, and withholds information..
Yea right, that would be a true statement if wikileaks, had all the information they have available to the public, but on the 250,000 documents he has he is up to about 350 I think.
He also 'redacts' or censors his content, he does not release it all.
He is also holding content, for his own gain, holding it incase something happens to him, he has that information as a blackmail tool..
So its nice for you to hold wikileaks up as something grand, but do you not realise that they are doing to you exactly what everyone else does to you.,.,
They have information that you may want to see, but they are not releasing that information to you, until such time as it is of value to wikileaks to release it.. if at all.
So wikileaks is censoring you, it is redacting information in what it does release.
It is also holding information for its own gains, how is that different to anyone else..
(why dont you comment on the frictions within wikileaks, and the possibility of a coup)...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wikileaks redacts and censors, and withholds information..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wikileaks redacts and censors, and withholds information..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wikileaks redacts and censors, and withholds information..
Damned if you do, damned if you don't, Darryl?
If he didn't redact the files, you'd be complaining that Wikileaks endangers lives by releasing names of informants.
They are steadily going through the stack of the 250000 documents and have news agencies and newspapers help them scan those documents to see which data could be very harmful and endangers lives.
That's why the rhetoric from your precious politicians is so disingenuous. Firstly, Wikileaks asked the DoD to help them go through the documents to redact the names that should remain hidden. The DoD said "no". And now they complain that Wikileaks endangers lives, despite the fact that they don't.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The journalist shield laws just don't apply to wikileaks.
and:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/manning-defens/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What is the difference between this Wikileaks situation and one where someone steals all of Steve Jobs's emails for the last 5 years straight from his personal computer and then hands them over to the NYT which then publishes them? Would the NYT be breaking any laws in this case? Is the only thing protecting the NYT in the Wikileaks case the notion it all qualifies as "whistleblowing"?
By the way, I love this blog!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Steve Jobs is a private entity.
Please do not go into law if you have to ask this question.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Hmmm, he does if you own any apple shares ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Musical Missionary
b) Wikileaks claims whistle blower status (you can discuss whether rightly so). You may remember the e-mails stolen from climate scientists. Everybody seemed to accept that that was a case of legitimate whistle blowing, even though this was proprietary information and it turned out that the e-mails did not contain any incriminating information.
c) It is pretty obvious that there is a public interest for the publication of a lot of these documents (e.g. security firm pays for raped boys in Afghanistan).
Amongst the people discussing this seriously, the only reasonable objections I have seen so far are the ones against dumping the entire file (which has not happened yet) and against protection of US sources in some of the earlier releases (Wikileaks has made a credible effort to fix that). The rest is hot air.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Musical Missionary
When whatsisname said that informants had been compromised in Afghanistan, well, turns out he was lying, and even had to quietly admit to that a few months later.
All the informants names or information had been redacted, or identifying documents had not been published.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Looking back, we see that Forbes published the interview where Assange announced the oncoming "megaleak" about "a big U.S. bank" on 11/29. The announcement from Senator Lieberman that Amazon has "ceased to host the WikiLeaks website" occurred on 12/2.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
I mean heck, every day I logon to the internet and bam, something new and horrifying is up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mostly people complaining are the ones who can't say "you are crazy" people have proof now, it can't be discarded as a "tin foil" thingy anymore.
Transparency is worth every sacrifice, because a government that is not accountable to its people is more dangerous then any media outlet out there or even Wikileaks.
If people knew more about their own governments maybe they can pressure them to do the responsible thing instead of delaying, lying and cheating, maybe people don't want economic interests to override moral standards.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Thanks!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I read that cable. Then I went to dhs.gov and downloaded the full plans for identifying and securing CI (critical infrastructure).
Really, you need to stop presuming that adversaries are deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid. Anyone who could reason their way out of a paper bag could compile most of that list off-the-cuff in a couple of hours. And anyone with even rudimentary research skills could come up with most of the rest in a day or two.
So when you hear the spokesliars prattling on about "...risk to national security", ask yourself: really? REALLY? Chances are nearly 100% that they're making it up (they are paid to lie convincingly, you know) and that whatever sooper-sekrit they're ranting about it has long since been known by everyone who could trouble themselves to know it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I was thinking about a website with:
- Proposed draft laws we want to see, where people can vote for what they want, each individual would receive a encrypted key and that would give him the right for one vote, for the place he lives, this way we see what people can agree on and what they don't, this part would also have a point and counter-point and proposed modifications where each and every individual would be able to express what he or she expects from that law.
- The site would have a list of candidates, what they are for and what they are not, collections of quotes, votes and actions they did take while in office.
- The site also needs to look at carrier public people of interest and see what they did, how they did it and what their alignments are.
- The site also needs a law-watchdog, to see what is useful, what is not, making a list and letting people see and decide in what things those laws should be changed.
The thing would work like we vote for president, our vote has no real meaning it is just for show but it gives a clear indication of what people want and something we can measure and point to.
The whist-blower thing we can forward to Wikileaks :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Subject
What's the diff? The NY Times released confidential information exactly the way wikileaks did. The difference is, Wikileaks can not afford big expensive lawyers, and the NY Times can.
I will also bet that the lawyers and politicians and those that enjoy abusing their powers to bully others are not going to let the NY Times go so easily. They will have to pay in some way...and I'm quite sure key people will lose their jobs, and the executives will get legal threats AND have their knuckles badly rapped.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So, yeah, that makes complete sense to blame Wikileaks that grows in the dirt that is so conveniently left unturned.
Where was the NYT when the WMD manipulation and the shining path of war was pushed down this nation's throat by the previous administration? It was obedient and very silent. It was "grappling with the hardest issues of the day" by bending over.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Imagine where the US would be now if NYT had followed this sentiment in 2002/3:
"It is the responsibility of American journalism, back to the founding of this country, to get out and try to grapple with the hardest issues of the day and to do it independently of the government."
What a load...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
That was my exact first thought. My second thought was "at least they know they're lying out their asses". My third thought was "is that truly better then being ignorant of their civic duty?"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Flying Lead
Very chilling.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Public vs. Private entities
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
NYT would like like they did on the NSA wiretaps
They would look like servile lapdogs of authority.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Follow the money
It is not mere cynicism to suppose that the heightened concern for "national security" exhibited by American politicians is a thin disguise for a morbid fear of being exposed as having accepted cash or other favors in return for supporting unethical, immoral or even illegal activities in the powerful and privileged positions they occupy.
We as readers really must insist that the press treat this as the First Amendment issue that it is. The cowardice of the NYT and other mainstream media; reporting this story without taking a principaled stand, is understandable given the pressures to which Amazon, PayPal, EveryDNS et al have been subjected. But that understanding is not acceptance. "Grappling with the hardest issues of the day" must be more than a byline, it needs to be a core value.
Matthew Ingraham is right!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]