Um, I Think It's Time for a Thread on WikiLeaks

or at least they should

i'm just a little worried that if "well wikileaks isn't REAL journalism" gains traction as a salient point in the unfolding fiasco (and it isn't one, TH, sorry), that it will be leveraged by lawmakers as a way to ram draconian anti-internet legislation through.

i think this was once referred to in the old, decrepit, discredited world of newsgathering as "don't become the story"

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, December 7, 2010 11:29 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it is you know the old, decrepit, discredited world of news gathering that decides what becomes the story - painting dude as a preening media whore while covering the wikileaks story 1mx more than the content of the leaks is somewhat rich

like i don't really care if wikileaks and blogs are bad journalism (i prefer the old-fashioned stuff, like you), they serve a purpose. and if a false legal distinction is made between anonymous wags on the internet and noble reporters in the newspaper, then we're heading for trouble.

haha cr?m i'm not saying that trad news orgs are covering this particularly well!

gbx what purpose do you think these particular cable leaks serve? or purposeS, if you like. speaking for myself, i think they COULD have served many specific purposes - shining a light on US relations with Yemen, for example - but it's pretty clear that their M.O. has diluted the impact of that potential purpose - perhaps even defused it as an issue - which is a shame

you know what, i'm really less interested in an inverted pyramid with a few culled quotes from interviews than i am in reading transcripts of those interviews. depends on the kind of story, sure. i really don't like this idea that the journalist sheds light but a data dump is... too much light to handle? maybe, maybe not, in both cases

ugh, i really don't want to watch it again, but CNN had some talking head ish between mccain's one-time campaign advisor (a brunette lady with v white teeth) and a dude from the guardian, and the mccain lady's way of describing journalism was....revealing.

...and now i can't find it on CNN, but when asked about the reporter's role (w/r/t finding stories in the cables) she said something, and i'm paraphrasing, like "well they've got to go out there and talk to people and understand the issues and explain the issues to their readers." just totally glossed over the bit about journalism reporting the facts.

and i realized that that is kinda how loads and loads of people in america, at least, see the role of journalism. don't tell me what's happening, tell me about ~the issues~. don't say "this is this," tell me what's an issue, what's making people talk.

If the Abu Gharib photos/videos had been dumped instead of a half-dozen selected photos...

::takes a data dump::

gbx what purpose do you think these particular cable leaks serve? or purposeS, if you like. speaking for myself, i think they COULD have served many specific purposes - shining a light on US relations with Yemen, for example - but it's pretty clear that their M.O. has diluted the impact of that potential purpose - perhaps even defused it as an issue - which is a shame

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, December 7, 2010 10:51 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

hey tracer, i'm not doing this again. we've done the "what purpose do you think these serve?" thing a couple times already, and, as a question, it misses the point entirely.

(i prefer the old-fashioned stuff, like you)

― kanellos (gbx), Tuesday, December 7, 2010 11:48 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

rmde - i prefer the old-fashioned stuff where no one ever looked at the media and said hey wtf r u doin, u know awesome stuff like the wash post editorial page and cnn - sry to interrupt yr charlie rose episode circa 2005 but this isnt an either/or preposition - new media/crazy revolutionaries like wikileaks add to the richness of the mediascape - the old dudes are still around complaining abt how shitty their holiday parties are now or whatever AND theres all this new stuff

Curious, how people suddenly have an opinion about what real news is when the discussion is about WikiLeaks while Fox News has existed for years.

ya fox news NEVER gets discussed

forgot the rmde after that

hey tracer, i'm not doing this again. we've done the "what purpose do you think these serve?" thing a couple times already, and, as a question, it misses the point entirely.

woops - worry to have missed it the first time around! i don't accept there's one "point" to this thread though, or that i'm missing it

worry = Sorry

no, i just like it when someone reads through all the information for me, and writes an intelligent story about it, i'm a busy man, etc. xp to icey

u mean like a blog

tbh i thought this was an example of a trad news org "doing it rite":
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/

there is still nothing about wikileaks keeping people from writing intelligent stories about it though

http://gawker.com/5708238/richard-cohen-a-journalists-job-is-to-keep-the-governments-secrets

http://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpg
http://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpg
http://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpghttp://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/12/126x100_custom_1291740732564_richardcohen2.jpg

wikileaks.tumblr.com

tumblrleaks or gtfo

tumblring dice

in any case, TH, the purposes they COULD have served are still available for, uh, serving. that assange and his MO have overshadowed things for now doesn't mean that ppl can't go on to sift through everything for 'real stories'

the opportunity hasn't been lost, just deferred. which, i guess, is why i think the question that you (and balls, and shakey, and history mayne) asked about "well WHY this, WHY now" is irrelevant because, you know, there's 250k documents out there for you or your peers to go and read to find the answer. what's more important, ~to me~, is that our elected officials appear to be gearing up for a coordinated dismantling of how sites like wikileaks may function in the future, which will in turn directly influence how boring old trad news conducts business. that assange may have misfired with this release, that he's a self-important d-bag, etc, really seems secondary

WikiLeaks means doing so not gonna happen research on war photos.

ok gbx & sonderangerbot, so - what about down the line? can't important stories come out of this? stories that rile public opinion? stories that MATTER?

the key for me is this: a leak on a single topic is a PEG. the only journalistic institution who doesn't need a peg is seymour hersh. and possibly the utne reader. everybody else needs one. even if the events in question (say, concerning russian pipelines, or secret military bases in yemen) occurred six months ago, the leak itself is an event - a peg - that warrants being written about. so you hang the actual contents of the leak on that peg.

two months from now, there is no peg.

the argument here - that i appear to have adopted as my own - is not about morality or ethics or anything like that. it's about artfulness.

i guess i don't know how to answer your question? that the peg is being lost because assange is the story and the content of the cables isn't is easily as much the fault of the traditional news orgs decision to frame it that way as it is assange's own desire for the spotlight.

yes - which is/was totally predictable!

i mean honest to god, maybe it's because assange only employs 22-year-old interns (judging from the people i've seen interviewed) but it's like they were all confused by the way in which one of the most thin-skinned, jealous, competitive, backstabbing-yet-tribal guilds ever - trad journalism - didn't jump to pronounce them all geniuses

new article by Assange: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/dont-shoot-messenger-for-revealing-uncomfortable-truths/story-fn775xjq-1225967241332

expecting WL to be journalists is like expecting Bam to be your savior. do some lifting.

thank you, kettle

Classic "everybody fear and panic" tabloid stuff here: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/12/07/wikileaks-just-beginning/

If we don't have the legal authority to prosecute him for espionage and to go after his alleged co-conspirator Pvt. Bradley Manning for treason and conspiracy, we should create it.

ah yes

If we don't have the legal authority, we should create it.

Also this is awesome:

Julian Assange is a cyber-terrorist. He should be punished to the full extent of the law -- not just for what he’s done but also to serve as a warning to those who would follow his example.

I'd love to see how that sentence would work. "Defendant is sentenced to eight years in the pokey for one count of cyber-terrorism, and an additional year to serve as a warning to those who would follow his example."

wanna cyber? ;)

murdoch news orgs a bigger threat to "our" democracy than WL is or could ever be.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703989004575653280626335258.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Dianne Feinstein: get under the espionage act of 1917

and a v cursory skimming of the wikipedia entry on brandenburg v. ohio would suggest that assange really just couldn't be successfully prosecuted.

the 'yelling fire in a theater' thing is one i've been thinking about, too, cuz, you know, it's only illegal to do that if there isn't actually a fire.

that opinion's been pretty neutered since it was written anyway

schenck, that is

the argument here - that i appear to have adopted as my own - is not about morality or ethics or anything like that. it's about artfulness.

Maybe this is what makes WL 'not journalists', certainly at least in the traditional sense. There's no peg, there's no art to it. Feels like their main operating procedure is just to degrade the value of classified info worldwide with little to no thought to stories and how they are framed. Maybe the failure of Collateral Murder to make a significant impact has soured them on that front.

little to no thought to stories and how they are framed.

One of the most interesting parts of this discussion, to me, is whether or not "framing the story" IS journalism, or is just a side-effect of the impossibility of being truly impartial. Cf the whole "tell me what makes people talk" burst of comments upthread.

thank you, kettle

I mean you fuckers who don't realize it's all over

Exactly. Just like shutting down Napster was the end of all illegal filesharing. (are you really calling people fuckers over something like this? Nice.)

tracer otm

Feinstein is a horror.