The Background Story Of The NY Times' Relationship With Julian Assange

from the complex-actors-in-complex-situations dept

If you haven't yet, set aside some time to read the NY Times' executive editor Bill Keller's account of the paper's association with Julian Assange. It gives some interesting (and not too surprising) background details about the relationship, Assange himself, and Keller's views on the overall impact of Wikileaks. Assange, not surprisingly, does not come off too well in the account, reinforcing the reports of his being someone who has an incredible ego and a conspiratorial bent. By this point, such claims are pretty much old news, but from an anecdotal level, the story is still entertaining.

Keller's final suggestion that Wikileaks' impact has been "overblown" is belied somewhat by the fact that Keller just spilled so much ink on the background of the paper's association (and subsequent blacklisting) with the organization. There are other points that could be nitpicked, but it's not surprising that Keller seeks to position the NY Times in the best possible light, and perhaps minimize the contributions of Wikileaks itself. But, just the fact that the NYT's is now considering its own Wikileaks, shows that the idea certainly has changed the way many people think about this aspect of reporting.

I'd argue -- as some others have -- that the impact of Wikileaks has actually been both over- and under-estimated. And part of the problem is that so many people are quick to conflate the idea of such an organization with the single organization itself (or worse, with a single person in the form of an easily dislikable Julian Assange). But it's a mistake to think that just because the particular organization itself is flawed, that its existence and what it's accomplished so far won't have profound effects on secrecy in organizations (government and corporate), the practice of journalism itself (which has suddenly gotten a hint of what's possible), and the idea of distributed or "stateless" organizations as enablers of information flow. It's that last point that I think many are ignoring, and that will later prove to be a mistake.

Filed Under: bill keller, journalism, julian assange, leaks, ny times, sources, wikileaks
Companies: ny times, wikileaks

NY Times Creating Its Own Wikileaks?

from the catching-up dept

It's been funny watching critics of Wikileaks assume that if Julian Assange was somehow takendown, or that Wikileaks itself was somehow taken offline, that this concept of intermediaries to help publish leaked documents would somehow go away. In the past few months we've seen tons of new such operations spring up, and I'm sure some will start to find success (while others will fade away). However, what may be most interesting is that the mainstream press is finally waking up to the fact that they probably should have been doing this all along. The NY Times is apparently planning to create its own version of Wikileaks in the form of an "E-Z Pass lane for leakers." This idea of systems to help people leak info isn't going away. And, I'm curious if those who think that Wikileaks is criminally liable for "inducing" leaks, also think that the NY Times is similarly liable?

Filed Under: leaks, sources, wikileaks
Companies: ny times

NY Times Finally Speaks Out Against Financial Firms Blocking Wikileaks

from the took-'em-long-enough dept

One of the more annoying things about watching the major news publications discussing the Wikileaks controversy is how infrequently they seem to realize that many of the attacks they themselves have been directing (or redirecting) at Wikileaks could come back to haunt them as well, as many could apply to them when they do things such as publish information about leaked documents. In fact, just last week, we wondered how come all those financial firms (including Visa, MasterCards, Bank of America and Paypal) were not cutting off the NY Times after it revealed military secrets. It appears that some folks on the NY Times editorial board have realized the same thing and published an editorial condemning the decision to cut off Wikileaks by these financial firms:

[A] bank's ability to block payments to a legal entity raises a troubling prospect. A handful of big banks could potentially bar any organization they disliked from the payments system, essentially cutting them off from the world economy...

[...] Still, there are troubling questions. The decisions to bar the organization came after its founder, Julian Assange, said that next year it will release data revealing corruption in the financial industry. In 2009, Mr. Assange said that WikiLeaks had the hard drive of a Bank of America executive.

What would happen if a clutch of big banks decided that a particularly irksome blogger or other organization was "too risky"? What if they decided -- one by one -- to shut down financial access to a newspaper that was about to reveal irksome truths about their operations?

That said, part of the editorial is a bit worrisome, as it seems to be suggesting that banks themselves should not be able to decide who they can and cannot work with, and that since they are "not too unlike other public utilities," perhaps they should be regulated, in the same way that a telco cannot refuse to provide phone or internet service to an operation who it does not like. I'm not sure that's necessarily the lesson we should be taking from this, however. The larger lesson is more about the lack of real competition in the space, where a very small number of intermediaries are effectively able to block off much of the money supply. That's the real problem. The answer should be to encourage greater competition in the space, such that if a few firms decide to cut off a service, it doesn't really matter, since there are many others to step in and help in their place.

Filed Under: ny times, wikileaks
Companies: ny times, wikileaks

Will Visa, MasterCard, Paypal, BofA & Apple Terminate Relationships With The NYTimes For Revealing Military Secrets?

from the consistency-is-all-i-ask dept

Glenn Greenwald has a post highlighting how a NY Times' investigative report on US military action in Pakistan appears to reveal key military secrets concerning plans that have not yet been put in place, and which could certainly put Americans and others in danger:

Indeed, the NYT reporters several times acknowledge that public awareness of these operations could trigger serious harm ("inside Pakistan, [] the movement of American forces has been largely prohibited because of fears of provoking a backlash"). Note, too, that Mazzetti and Filkins did not acquire these government secrets by just passively sitting around and having them delivered out of the blue. To the contrary: they interviewed multiple officials both in Washington and in Afghanistan, offered several of them anonymity to induce them to reveal secrets, and even provoked officials to provide detailed accounts of past secret actions in Pakistan, including CIA-directed attacks by Afghans inside that country.

As he notes, all of this seems a lot more revealing than anything that Wikileaks has done, and a lot more likely to put people in danger. Yet, there's been almost no response, and certainly nothing like the attention paid to Wikileaks -- with calls for trials or even killing the head of Wikileaks. Seems odd, doesn't it?

But, an even bigger point is buried towards the end in an update, where Greenwald asks:

Why aren't Visa, MasterCard, Paypal, their web hosting company and various banks terminating their relationships with The New York Times, the way they all did with WikiLeaks: not only for the NYT's publication of many of the same diplomatic and war cables published by WikiLeaks, but also for this much more serious leak today in which WikiLeaks was completely uninvolved?

And, I think, we can add Apple to that list. After all, if these companies keep claiming that Wikileaks "broke the law" (as most of the companies listed here are saying), why do they not feel the same way about the NY Times?

Filed Under: hypocrisy, journalism, state secrets, wikileaks
Companies: apple, mastercard, ny times, paypal, visa

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.

Filed Under: journalism, wikileaks
Companies: ny times, wikileaks

Senator Lieberman Says NY Times Should Be Investigated For Publishing Wikileaks Documents

from the is-that-joe-mccarthy-or-joe-lieberman dept

Senator Joe Lieberman continues to expand his desire to piss all over the First Amendment and the very concept of a free press. He's already been pressuring companies to stop working with Wikileaks and has already introduced an anti-Wikileaks bill that appears to be pure censorship, but he's now extending his lack of understanding of the First Amendment to the press: stating that the NY Times should be investigated for criminal activity in publishing the Wikileaks documents.

Beyond the blatantly troubling statement that appears to go against the very principles of a free press (which we thought Lieberman was supposed to be upholding), it would appear that the bill Lieberman himself introduced shows that he already knows the NY Times did not, in fact, violate any laws in publishing that info. That's because the bill would seek to add liability for such actions, and we all know that you can't violate a law before it's actually been turned into a law.

In the meantime, when did Joe Lieberman become the reincarnation of Joe McCarthy? It's amazingly depressing to see a US Senator so blatantly in favor of direct censorship of the press.

Filed Under: free speech, freedom of the press, joe lieberman, publishing, wikileaks
Companies: ny times

NY Times Sues Kachingle Over Publicity Stunt... Making Publicity Stunt That Much More Effective

from the that's-not-helping dept

Last week, we wrote about The NY Times threatening Kachingle, over a silly publicity stunt that Kachingle pulled. As we explained, Kachingle, which is a voluntary micropayment-type solution (somewhat similar to Flattr), for blog and journalism content, had put up a site where it encouraged the NY Times not to set up the paywall it's planning. To "convince" the NY Times not to bother, it wanted people to contribute to the various NY Times' bloggers via Kachingle, and Kachingle would use the amount raised to try to let the NY Times know there were alternatives. Of course, no one really believed that the NY Times would stop its paywall because of this. It's just a silly publicity stunt.

As we noted, it seemed clear the NY Times was overreacting, and only drawing more attention to the effort. My only question was where the actual money was going, and someone from Kachingle explained that the money would be sent to the email addresses associated with each blog. I'll admit, that seemed questionable to me, as I would bet that the NY Times most certainly does not allow any of its bloggers to accept money from outside sources for its blogging.

That said, it still seems positively ridiculous to now find out that the NY Times has taken it to the next step and filed a lawsuit against Kachingle claiming that the whole effort is a trademark violation. You can see the full lawsuit below: While the Times does mention copyright questions, it did not include copyright in the lawsuit -- though Kachingle says the NY Times has told it that it has filed a DMCA takedown to Kachingle's ISP. The lawsuit looks exceptionally weak. It seems to focus on the fact that Kachingle uses the little icons associated with each blog to highlight each blog in its leaderboard. The thing is, though, no one reading the Kachingle site is likely to be confused about whether or not the Times has a relationship with Kachingle. It's abundantly clear they do not. The copyright claim (not in the lawsuit, but apparently in the DMCA takedown) also looks weak. Kachingle appears to use a tiny fragment of content.

Either way, I can't figure out why the Times is doing this. It seems to just be pure whining by the Times' lawyers, because they don't like the fact that the paywall is being mocked. There is no likelihood of confusion here. Yes, the Kachingle publicity stunt is childish, but it's the sort of thing that the Times would have been much better off just ignoring (or mocking back), rather than going to court. These days, it really seems that the NY Times has such an inferiority complex about the internet, and it doesn't make the company or the publication look good.

Filed Under: kachingle, ny times, paywalls, trademark
Companies: kachingle, ny times

NY Times Sends Cease & Desist Letter To Kachingle For Trying To Show Them Alternatives To Paywalls

from the hmm... dept

Back in August, we wrote about two companies Flattr and Kachingle that were trying to create a very easy to use form of micropayments, that do away with the mental transaction costs, as a method of getting people to voluntarily support content they enjoy monetarily. Since then we've been experimenting with Flattr (you can see the widget to the left) and it's been quite interesting, especially since Flattr finally opened its doors to anyone, rather than being invite only, as it was when we first started. We'll have a more complete report about our Flattr experiment sometime soon...

That said, Flattr's competitor, Kachingle (which is similar, but with a few key differences) recently put together an amusing publicity stunt. Knowing that the NY Times paywall is fast approaching, it put together a "Stop the Paywall!" campaign for Kachingle uses, letting them designate which NY Times' columnists they want a piece of their monthly contributions to go to.

It's a pure publicity stunt, and when I saw it announced I wasn't going to write about it. Except... the NY Times and its lawyers have now changed that. While Kachingle leaves out some of the important details, apparently, three people from the NY Times, including the VP of Digital, a lawyer and someone working on the NYT's paywall, called Kachingle, demanding they take down the promotion, saying that it was "annoying" and that it would not stop the paywall. After Kachingle refused, they said they were sending a cease-and-desist letter (which, as of this posting, apparently has not arrived at the Kachingle offices).

In other words, the NY Times just made sure that Kachingle gets a ton more attention for its publicity stunt, and looks like they're simply not open to any alternative business models. I am curious as to the legal reasoning behind the cease-and-desist. I will say that, from the information posted, it is not clearly stated where the money designated for the NY Times' bloggers is actually going, which I would guess may be the legal concern. I guess I could see a trademark claim, in that the NY Times could say that this implies that the NY Times has a business relationship with Kachingle when it does not -- but I think that anyone reading the actual site would immediately recognize that there's clearly no endorsement or relationship with the NY Times. In fact, that's why Kachingle set up the page...

Anyway, if Kachingle ever gets and posts the C&D, we'll be sure to update the post... But, really, what benefit is there to the NY Times in doing this? Threatening Kachingle with legal action seems downright petty and closed minded. Why not let the company run its promotional campaign, see if you learn anything from it, and move on?

Filed Under: cease and desist, donations, micropayments, paywalls
Companies: kachingle, ny times

New York Times Insists It Can Stay Part Of The Conversation With 'First Click Free'

from the yeah,-good-luck dept

While I've still been linking to NY Times articles for Techdirt posts, if there are decent stories on the same subject elsewhere, I've been starting to use those other sources instead. That's because I know we're getting closer and closer to 2011 -- when the NY Times has promised to lock up its content behind a paywall. The company still keeps pretending that it can have the best of both worlds, and is apparently insisting that the paywall won't remove it from the wider conversation because it will allow a "first click free" sort of program, whereby you'll be able to read an article once if you click through from another site, before being asked to pay. While that might make the NY Times comfortable, it doesn't make me comfortable at all. If there are no other options, I may still link to NY Times content, but I'm certainly going to be a lot more cautious linking to it. Why would I even risk pissing off my readers by a lockout when I can point them to another site that actually wants that traffic?

Filed Under: conversation, links, openness, paywall
Companies: ny times