Brave-Kid Journalism: Manning Up in the face of Wikileaks.

Or personing-up, as the case may be. Mustn't cut my sisters out.

from the awesomeness that is xkcd.com

Through the compulsive posting (due to the compulsive history-making etc) that the last couple days have yielded, I've developed some half-decently-researched ideas and opinions about this whole wikileaks/free speech/speaking truth to power thing (if I do say so myself--feel free to disagree with me, I might be talking out of my ass).

As those opinions developed, I've been gobsmacked by the amount of smacktalk that the popular journalistic front (PJF? There's a Life of Brian joke in there somewhere) has had to offer to wikileaks. Listening to columnists, you'd think that Assange personally stole state secrets from the arms of Abe Lincoln himself, to help build a giant middle-finger statue out of the bodies of bunnies, babies and classic library books in the lawn of the White House. It's ridiculous. It's a little befuddling, actually.

In my travels (and compulsive research), however, I stumbled on a couple strong and awesome columnists siding with the idea that speaking truth to power is important, and should probably be lauded as opposed to spat on and tossed on DHS watch-lists.


The Atlantic covers the orgiastic, Brutus-eque backstabbing Wikileaks has taken from other news media since the Cables. With great fervour, I add.

John Naughton (whose gold appeared in a previous post) breaks it down here: live with leaks and the people who leak them, or shut down the internet--it's your call, Western World.

My second-favourite of the day: Simon Jenkins weighs in on Wikileaks in the middle of a World Cup post. To wit:

 "Disclosure is messy and tests moral and legal boundaries. It is often irresponsible and usually embarrassing. But it is all that is left when regulation does nothing, politicians are cowed, lawyers fall silent and audit is polluted. Accountability can only default to disclosure.

I found myself chastised this week for my defence of WikiLeaks, on the ground that thieves should not revel in their crime by demanding that victims be more careful with their property. But in matters of public policy who is thieving what from whom? The WikiLeaks material was left by a public body, the US state department, like a wallet open on a park bench, except that in this case the wallet was full of home truths about the mendacity of public policy.

Of course diplomacy between nations – over sport or whatever – cannot be conducted entirely in the open. Some secrets must be protected. But American secrets shared with 2 million people authorised to see them are hardly secrets. The content of the WikiLeaks cables cannot have surprised anyone in the know, least of all the foreign intelligence agencies that must long have been reading them."

And my FAVOURITE is Glenn Greenwald's furious, FURIOUS calling out of TIME Magazine's refusal to actually issue real corrections to the outright lies in their Wikileaks coverstory. With an inspiring journalistic anger that makes me want to kiss him.

Also, it's  freaky that something I said in a previous post is repeated almost verbatim in the House of Congress by RON PAUL. But I gotta give credit for sense-talkin' where it's due.

"Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?"

**Full disclosure: I'm one of those unfortunate and over-privileged Westerners that only usefully read one language, so I'm not equipped to talk about the French, Spanish or non-Romance language journalism that's happening. I actually bet it's a bit more sympathetic, for various reasons.