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I think you've proved my point by missing it. > "Building a network of aligned journalists and political allies would have increased visibility, attracted more

by Mizza 10y ago

I think you've proved my point by missing it. > "Building a network of aligned journalists and political allies would have increased visibility, attracted more leaks with localized impact, and made it much harder to shut down discussion of contents with "this was stolen", as the Democrats are now doing with complicity of much of the US media." What you're describing is called "starting a newspaper." This happens all the time. The Intercept is a good example of what you're talking about, there are hundreds of others. BuzzFeed, HuffPo, Drudge, take your pick. It's not the same thing. I can explain the difference if you'd like me to.

branchless 10y ago
Exactly. What do we want? Tips on stories inside banks from the likes of journo Chris Giles at the FT who is utterly wedded to the status quo, along with tens of other "journalists"? Our media is like a sieve, only instead of finding the unusual and challenging thinkers it weeds them out and retains the unthinking dross whose only ambition is to join the establishment and kick back.
- resfirestar 10y ago
  Just because you can think of one journalist you wouldn't want handling financial leaks doesn't mean they're all rotten. Were the Panama Papers (ICIJ) not well handled? Even the Los Angeles Times apparently had the guts to publish a story that took the side of low level bank employees, eventually bringing down the chairman of Wells Fargo. And what's the implied better alternative, anyway? When Wikileaks does a data dump, most people aren't poring over it all night, it's usually people in the same media you decry who bring important revelations to mass attention. Giving them a head start to potentially write a great story doesn't seem like something that should be wildly controversial.
  - branchless 10y ago
    As the parent post suggested I don't want wikileaks merging/'empowered' with our largely supine press.
resfirestar 10y ago
It's entirely different from starting a newspaper. We're talking about what Wikileaks does with its position as a trusted avenue for large data leaks. When Wikileaks receives a data dump, it verifies and looks through the data, determines whether they can make a splash with it, spends weeks or months hyping the release while formatting and indexing the raw data, then releases it along with a flurry of tweets highlighting items that Assange views as most damaging to the target organization. Where that goes wrong is not the logistics, it's the publicity model. With the DNC leaks, they released massive numbers of emails, forcing journalists to slog through at the same time as the DNC put out statements decrying theft and blaming Russia. Sure, @wikileaks might quickly tweet out some highlights, but they're all hot soundbites that mostly get retweeted by Trump fans, not compelling narratives. And that doesn't happen at all for non-English releases like AKP. You say I'm proposing a newspaper-like model. A newspaper verifies and looks through the data, looks for a specific narrative to report on, collects background information and comments, and publishes one or more stories that they believe are good for the public. They don't typically work closely with other newspapers or release raw data to the public. This isn't what Wikileaks is about. If someone with data wants to give it to a group that will use and spin it a certain way, as you say there are plenty of newspapers out there. Wikileaks presents itself as the choice for someone who hacked data from an organization outside their home country, or otherwise doesn't know who can report on it or who to trust. So I'll try rephrasing what I want. A better Wikileaks focuses on its core competencies of securely receiving, verifying, and formatting large leaks. It works with newspapers instead of snarking at them on Twitter, and allows them to create some compelling, broadly relevant narratives before publishing all the data. It's effective. Collateral Murder got huge coverage because it was one video with one clear angle. Cablegate worked because the release was initially restricted to newspapers, allowing the stories to precede the blanket rebuttals and put large parts of the press on Wikileaks' side. Wikileaks should have moved to build on Cablegate instead of moving away from that release model. Instead, according to the article, Assange decided to control everything himself, mistaking misalignment of priorities with certain outlets for an all-encompassing conspiracy. Now much of the US media is parroting the PR line of a political party while the rest play catch-up and mostly deal in soundbites. Whatever the DNC hacker's motives, the impact is far less than I think it could have been.

by Mizza 10y ago

branchless 10y ago

Exactly. What do we want? Tips on stories inside banks from the likes of journo Chris Giles at the FT who is utterly wedded to the status quo, along with tens of other "journalists"? Our media is like a sieve, only instead of finding the unusual and challenging thinkers it weeds them out and retains the unthinking dross whose only ambition is to join the establishment and kick back.

resfirestar 10y ago
Just because you can think of one journalist you wouldn't want handling financial leaks doesn't mean they're all rotten. Were the Panama Papers (ICIJ) not well handled? Even the Los Angeles Times apparently had the guts to publish a story that took the side of low level bank employees, eventually bringing down the chairman of Wells Fargo. And what's the implied better alternative, anyway? When Wikileaks does a data dump, most people aren't poring over it all night, it's usually people in the same media you decry who bring important revelations to mass attention. Giving them a head start to potentially write a great story doesn't seem like something that should be wildly controversial.
- branchless 10y ago
  As the parent post suggested I don't want wikileaks merging/'empowered' with our largely supine press.

resfirestar 10y ago

It's entirely different from starting a newspaper. We're talking about what Wikileaks does with its position as a trusted avenue for large data leaks. When Wikileaks receives a data dump, it verifies and looks through the data, determines whether they can make a splash with it, spends weeks or months hyping the release while formatting and indexing the raw data, then releases it along with a flurry of tweets highlighting items that Assange views as most damaging to the target organization. Where that goes wrong is not the logistics, it's the publicity model. With the DNC leaks, they released massive numbers of emails, forcing journalists to slog through at the same time as the DNC put out statements decrying theft and blaming Russia. Sure, @wikileaks might quickly tweet out some highlights, but they're all hot soundbites that mostly get retweeted by Trump fans, not compelling narratives. And that doesn't happen at all for non-English releases like AKP. You say I'm proposing a newspaper-like model. A newspaper verifies and looks through the data, looks for a specific narrative to report on, collects background information and comments, and publishes one or more stories that they believe are good for the public. They don't typically work closely with other newspapers or release raw data to the public. This isn't what Wikileaks is about. If someone with data wants to give it to a group that will use and spin it a certain way, as you say there are plenty of newspapers out there. Wikileaks presents itself as the choice for someone who hacked data from an organization outside their home country, or otherwise doesn't know who can report on it or who to trust. So I'll try rephrasing what I want. A better Wikileaks focuses on its core competencies of securely receiving, verifying, and formatting large leaks. It works with newspapers instead of snarking at them on Twitter, and allows them to create some compelling, broadly relevant narratives before publishing all the data. It's effective. Collateral Murder got huge coverage because it was one video with one clear angle. Cablegate worked because the release was initially restricted to newspapers, allowing the stories to precede the blanket rebuttals and put large parts of the press on Wikileaks' side. Wikileaks should have moved to build on Cablegate instead of moving away from that release model. Instead, according to the article, Assange decided to control everything himself, mistaking misalignment of priorities with certain outlets for an all-encompassing conspiracy. Now much of the US media is parroting the PR line of a political party while the rest play catch-up and mostly deal in soundbites. Whatever the DNC hacker's motives, the impact is far less than I think it could have been.