What do you think of WikiLeaks?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101204/ap_on_hi_te/wikileaks

 

As a journalist, I am genuinely curious:

How the hell does this guy get his hands on thousands and thousands of classified documents? I don't get it. We have to go through 10 layers of sports information goons to find out when a defensive coordinator is going to be named. This guy, on a weekly basis, is obtaining hundreds of thousands of sensitive federal government documents.

Why isn't the New York Times getting the same documents? Why isn't the Washington Post getting them?

 

Because they are happy to use Wiki Leaks as 3rd party cover. It get's them off the hook for criticism.

 

I don't think that's what Dick's asking.

More like "Why is it when we file an FOIA request, we receive nothing but redacted documents or no documents at all?" Or "Why don't whistleblowers go directly to the papers?"

I assume in part because no major newspaper is going to accept leaked documents from an anonymous source. They might accept and publish leaked documents from someone and never name them as a source, but they'd never take a pile of documents straight from some unknown party.

Which is exactly how Wikileaks works.

http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/wikileaks-beyond-the-headlines-4-basic-questions-answered/19568515

 

Agreed. It's called treason.

 

Were the Pentagon Papers "treason" as well? Should Daniel Ellsberg have been executed?

 

Never take them or never publish them?

If they aren't taking them, they aren't doing their jobs.

You take them. Then you work to verify.

It doesn't get much ink - not surprisingly - but perhaps no one has been exposed more by Assange than the people covering national and international government for mainstream news organizations - exposed for being glorified stenographers.

 

Even if you verified them, would you publish documents without ever knowing their source?

 

Not like he does. Not just info dumps of out-of-context documents.

But certainly you could piece together stories via them, with shoe leather reporting.

Reporters receive anonymous tips all the time. Everything from car accidents to administrative hirings at the local school district to who is going to run for mayor. They pursue and verify. If someone called me anonymously and told me that a head coach is going to be fired, I start asking questions. Ninety-nine percent of the time it leads nowhere and it was just some crank. One percent of the time, the anonymous tip was true. The fact that the pursuit of the story began with an anonymous tip doesn't preclude it germinating into a story.

Why is this one guy getting all of this information, while the White House Press Corps continues to remain affixed to the teat of Robert Gibbs for their information?

 

If you're a whistleblower, to whom do you send your story? The organization that's going to poke around trying to confirm your identity and corroborate what they've been given, thereby putting you at risk of being identified and dealt with? Or the organization that simply posts it all online without ever pestering you for anything or putting you at risk?

 

But didn't WikiLeaks identify the soldier that leaked the documents? Certainly he didn't stay anonymous. Anyway, this is not a new phenomenon. On a much smaller scale, The Smoking Gun.com has broken a bunch of stories that just required some persistence with FOIA requests that reporters used to being spoon fed information at press conferences didn't take up.

And, change of subject, I wonder if anyone has done a story yet on Wikipedia and how they are dealing with a potential brand spoiling through no fault of their own. I bet a lot of people think Wikileaks is somehow connected to Wikipedia.

 

No. Wikileaks did not identify him.

It is unlikely he would be disappointed with the coverage of the cables, which continue to lead news bulletins around the world. His chances of observing their impact from a position of freedom were shattered when the hacker he was talking to in May this year, Adrian Lamo, reported him to the federal authorities.

"I'd be one paranoid boy in your shoes," Lamo told him ominously. Within 24 hours officers from the US Army Criminal Investigation Command arrested Manning and took him into custody in Kuwait.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/30/wikileaks-cables-bradley-manning