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."

Comments

Better Reporting On The Way.

[Web Goddess]

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.

Somebody call the Hoff

[0xdeadbeef]

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.

Wouldn't that money be better spent on a prissy talking car?

Newspapers?

[adbge]

Why release the documents to newspapers before releasing to the public?

I feel that the public should be able to view the entire document when the newspaper does -- instead of being spoon fed snippets of the document by the media for two weeks.

Re:Newspapers?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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.

Re:A simple problem.

[Jahava]

Wouldn't this defeat the purpose of anonymization? I mean, the newspaper columnist would be the logical target for who to pursue after something finds its way through this channel. I guess the newspaper itself would have to print the article on the subject anonymously, which doesn't help it much more than printing the leak directly under the same conditions, because they could still be traced (after all, they wrote the article on it) by their subjects. I guess the real benefit would be making sure it's etched in stone, post-apocalypse.

It's a good question, and important that people understand it, so here goes. The scenario is as follows:

1. A newspaper posts a generic link, something like "If you know of any local scandals, post them anonymously at https://www.wikileaks.com/submit/newspaper-name/ !"
2. Someone with a local scandal does just that: they sign into Wikileaks at the aforementioned URL and post their information
3. Wikileaks now has the local scandal, and it is associated with the newspaper that published the leak (via the newspaper-name component of the URL)
4. Wikileaks contacts the newspaper, and gives just them access to the information for two weeks (the exclusivity is a reward for attracting the information via their link)
5. Newspaper publishes the information, scandal, oh noes!
6. Two weeks later, Wikileaks releases the information publicly on their site

Now, specifically regarding your question ... it would not defeat the purpose of anonymous submission. The newspaper columnist knows nothing about the person who actually submitted the information. The columnist only knows the information through Wikileaks. The newspaper would print an article by a columnist attributing the information to an anonymous source. The columnist is not anonymous - but they're not the one who leaked the information, so it's all good.

It's actually a pretty cool idea, but I am worried about the fire it would draw from the Powers That Be regarding Wikileaks. Enough power (read: governments) can trace and stop it, and maybe de-anonymize the incoming stream with enough resources. Wikileaks must either become recognized as an asset or ride below that threshold.

there's another angle

[SuperBanana]

By helping reporters to more quickly arrive at the heart of the story, WikiLeaks Local just might turn around the industry!

The problem isn't just paying people to research and verify stories. The problem is lso that people who are rich and don't like their dirty laundry being in the papers, tend to use their money to threaten papers with legal action. Small papers have to tremble and retreat. Big papers won't cave.

Case and point would be the community newspaper which investigated condo conversion developers. The story had to be handed off to the Boston Globe, because the Globe could afford to tell the developers to Just Try And Sue Us.

Clearly the story that Chris Lovett was uncovering "had legs," as we in the newspaper business used to say. The buy-rehab-sell-foreclose matrix called for a deep looksee that would by its nature be extensive, expensive, and full of extraordinary challenges for a local newspaper and its intrepid freelance reporter.

Soon enough came a letter to Lovett from a lawyer from the law firm representing Scott warning him that his continuing reporting could result in serious legal consequences for him and the Reporter.

No newspaper worth its ink falls back in the face of such an admonition against the quality of its news report, but reality does intervene in terms of staff size, the money needed to pursue a story with so many tentacles, the time needed to dot all the "I's", and the will and financial resources to deal with a defense of its actions and those of its trusted reporter in the legal arena should things come to that.

So the Reporter's pursuit of the ending to this story was stalled.

Enter an eminent investigative reporter named Walter V. Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize winner with The Boston Globe's Spotlight Team, which he directed in its world-shaking probe into the priest-abuse scandal in the archdiocese of Boston. I happened to be playing a round of golf with him and I mentioned the Lovett two-parter to him, saying that the Reporter and Chris had gone as far as we could with the story, given our resources.

After some discussion, Robinson, retired but holding a continuing affiliation with the Globe, managed to get the story onto the paper's agenda and the result of that almost a year later was this past Sunday's lead-story Page One presentation of the Michael David Scott real estate story that ran across two full pages inside.

I think they could need some help here...

[kan0r]

WikiLeaks didn't win that challange yet and I think it would be a good idea to support them by commenting on and rating their application here: http://generalapp.newschallenge.org/SNC/ViewItem.aspx?pguid=6aee8166-fb7c-4a2e-8581-fa6f6ff036dd&itemguid=3decc665-ebd1-46f0-95f4-f5fa57311062