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Wikileaks Targets the Local News Frontier
eldavojohn writes "Wikileaks has been pretty successful on a global scale — from ACTA documents to East Anglian e-mails, it is the definitive place to find suppressed documents. But some are saying that now Wikileaks should begin focusing on a local level. From the article: 'The organization has applied for a $532,000 two-year grant from the Knight Foundation to expand the use of its secure, anonymous submission system by local newspapers. The foundation's News Challenge will give as much as $5 million this year to projects that use digital technology to transform community news. WikiLeaks proposes using the grant to encourage local newspapers to include a link to WikiLeaks' secure, anonymous servers so that readers can submit documents on local issues or scandals. The newspapers would have first crack at the material, and after a period of time — perhaps two weeks, [German Wikileaks spokesman Daniel] Schmitt said — the documents would be made public on the main WikiLeaks page.' Anyone reading this who works for a community news source and would like to host sensitive documents with no risk: here is your solution."
This may well be the key to resuscitating the integrity of journalistic reporting. With falling revenues comes an inability to pay reporters enough to research stories and verify the claims of sources. By helping reporters to more quickly arrive at the heart of the story, WikiLeaks Local just might turn around the industry!
If it becomes big, it may also become an anonymous source of misinformation. Sad.
There could be anything on wikileaks. I think it all needs to be refused classification.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I'd assume that this is a strategic compromise on Wikileaks' part. They are trying to encourage local papers to bring them into the process of storing and disseminating juicy information, so that they can make it available to the public.
The supply of journalists willing to play along if they get a two-week head start over their competitors is almost certainly a good deal larger than the supply of journalists willing to do so out of the goodness of their hearts.
If the alternative were getting it now, obviously waiting two weeks would be stupid. If, however, the alternative is never seeing it, two weeks would be a tiny price to pay.
The problem with reporting, or more accurately the recent problem with it (there are other problems that it has always had, nothing is perfect) is that not enough time is spent on stories. There is this push to be immediate with everything, and thus fact checking falls by the wayside. The solution is simply to slow down and do proper investigations. Wikileaks won't help that as it is inherently unreliable. You know nothing about the people putting things on there, and thus you have no idea if it is true or not. So while it would be a great starting place, if you use it to speed things up it'll just make reporting more problematic. If it is taken as some sort of "gold standard" that "If it is on WL it must be accurate," things will get worse not better.
The appropriate use would be if you see something that is relevant to then go and work on interdependently verifying it. For example there is a document that allegedly shows corruption of a local politician. You then use that as a starting point to see where to look. You investigate to determine if other evidence supports the document or not, and then do a story on that.
However, that takes time and effort. If you just uphold the document as true because it was on that site, well then you are going to get hit with fakes.
Why should newspapers get first crack at the information posted in the leaks? It sounds like all they'd contribute is the research time of their writers (and a little local publicity), and yet the leaks would shorten and ease their research process enormously. Why give them the added benefit of two weeks exclusive time with the leaked information?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but why should an organization built on the premise that traditional media hides the truth or doesn't have the resources to investigate it properly begin an initiative which will prop up local papers and give them exclusive stories, albeit temporarily, from the information uncovered? Does wikileaks actually like traditional media and want to help them out? Why not continue relying on their volunteer sources for the whole process?
Wikileaks has their own verification process independent of the local newspapers.
Your post also flies in the face of Wikileaks philosophy. From their about page:
Wikileaks believes that best way to truly determine if a document is authentic is to open it up for analysis to the broader community - and particularly the community of interest around the document.
I am also highly sceptical of your implied claim that an "actual journalist's" verification is worth anything.
Why should newspapers get first crack at the information posted in the leaks? It sounds like all they'd contribute is the research time of their writers (and a little local publicity), and yet the leaks would shorten and ease their research process enormously.
Uh, because it's often good to be able to investigate without tipping your hand? Records tend to disappear off the shelves, people stop returning your phone calls, and media relations people start spinning faster than a top...or simply saying "no comment."
It's especially fun when they don't know you have proof of your claims, and thus spin utter bullshit lies.
Please help metamoderate.
So if my newspaper breaks the story is that a clear indication that the leaker accessed the wikileaks up-loader from my newspapers website?
Could a lawyer construe that since I placed the link on my site for the express purpose of facilitating the upload in the first place that I was somehow complicit in, and liable for, the release of the information? IANAL but law and order keeps telling me that the parities to a conspiracy do not need to know each and still be involved in a conspiracy. I wonder if the target of a leak could be successful with that argument.