10 ms·

Wikileaks: the World's First Stateless News Organization

69 points by Flemlord 16y ago

dotBen 16y ago
I think it's very dangerous to define and describe WikiLeaks as 'a news organization'. News organizations curate and editorialize content - I hope that WikiLeaks doesn't editorialize their content (I know Julian Assange has talked about 'getting PR for leakers' as a motive, which is concerning). We're still working out what WikiLeaks is as their model is basically something new for the mainstream world that they have not seen before.
- api 16y ago
  Sure news organizations curate and editorialize content... they ask "is this the official party line?" If the answer is no, they don't print it.
  - dotBen 16y ago
    Some do. Ok, most do. I spent 6 years working for BBC News and I didn't see that happen there. But it's a non-corporate news provider.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      I really doubt that many consciously ask whether something fits "the party line". They mostly introduce bias subconsciously in their decisions about what is and isn't "news". Politician A accidentally says something stupid and it's ignored. Politician B accidentally says something stupid and it's "Politician B's Latest Gaffe" on the front page. (Why yes, I do have a specific Politican B in mind, but shan't mention any names to avoid off-topic discussions.) Anyway, it's odd that you would think that being a "non-corporate news provider" would insulate the BBC from bias. What about the natural groupthink which tends to accumulate in organizations insulated from real-world concerns?
    - anigbrowl 16y ago
      I wonder when and where? I'm generally a big fan of the BBC but it's not completely above the fray. Thinking back to times I've been living in the UK and the country has gone into war (most recently Iraq), the BBC reported on the political leadup reasonably even-handedly, but as soon as the shooting started Paxman took a break from Newsnight and instead we got Peter Snow running around a giant table with toy tanks on it (Americans: you switch on expecting PBS but get CNN instead).
      - hugh3 16y ago
        Whereas I would, on the other hand, say the BBC was anti-war biased from day one. Which just goes to prove that "unbiased" journalism is impossible, since people only percieve bias when it disagrees with their own biases. It's worth noting that even wikipedia doesn't attempt to be "unbiased" but makes the weaker claim to have a "neutral point of view". And it can only achieve that state via continuous edit wars between people holding all major points of view. And even then it's only an ideal, not a description of the state of wikipedia at any given time.
        sprout 16y ago
        People perceive bias in the absence of bias. I remember in 2004 when Bush was re-elected, the local paper ran with the headline "Four More Years" and a smiling picture from Bush's victory party. People wrote in and complained that it was a biased headline. They had imagined that the editor who wrote that wrote it with a heavy heart - even though Bush supporters themselves were chanting "four more years" to rally the troops at campaign events.
        arethuza 16y ago
        "BBC was anti-war biased from day one" My recollection is that the BBC was not biased against previous wars - and I can recall the Falklands & the first Gulf War fairly well. However, for the Second Gulf War they did keep asking "why are we going to war?" - which as it turns out was a perfectly valid question as the justifications for the war (and especially for UK involvement) ranged from rather weak arguments (Saddam is bad) through to outright lies (involvement with 9/11 or WMD). So if the BBC is biased it seems to be biased in favour of the truth.
- hugh3 16y ago
  I hope that WikiLeaks doesn't editorialize their content (I know Julian Assange has talked about 'getting PR for leakers' as a motive, which is concerning). Wasn't it wikileaks which added the somewhat dubious "interpretation" captions etc to the video which they chose to call "collateral murder"?
- ugh 16y ago
  But Wikileaks does curate and (to a lesser extent) editorialize. I don’t think that’s a bad things. News organizations without any curation are a pipe dream.
  - notahacker 16y ago
    Not an entirely impossible pipe dream though - I'm sure it would be feasible to blur the boundaries between news publishing and anarchic internet fora by algorithmically relegate misleading or non-newsworthy submissions based purely on user preferences.
- w1ntermute 16y ago
  I hope that WikiLeaks doesn't editorialize their content AFAIK, they don't. For example, in the case of the Afghanistan war logs, they provided the logs to the NYT, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel and left the editorializing up to them.
- rdtsc 16y ago
  News organizations curate and editorialize content. I guess if you take the Orwellian interpretation. Perhaps the original interpretation fits them best because they just provide the bare documents as the do not editorialize. In other words "new organizations are organization that do nothing but provide news". Of course editorializing takes places when selecting the content. But hopefully the "wiki" part of "wikileaks" is emphasized enough to that everything is available to everyone and the readers get to decide that is more newsworthy for them.
ugh 16y ago
It sounds whimsical but the headline of this article helped me gain a new perspective on Wikileaks. I probably shouldn’t see them as this supposed holier than thou and perfect organization which fails miserably at being just that (especially in the wake of the Collateral Murder video). They are just something like a news organization, with their own biases, their own screw ups (which should be criticized), but they still provide a valuable service to society. The headline helped me come to terms with my ultimately unrealistic expectations of Wikileaks.
- greyman 16y ago
  I came to the some conclusion after the Collateral Murder video - WikiLeaks is a news organization, which gathers, curate, and sometimes editorialize their content. The only difference is that Internet allows them to be outside the jurisdiction of any concrete state. But they have their own bias and their own agenda, just like any other media. As you said, they provide valuable service to society, but we still need to watch them closely like any other organization. Anyway, what they do I think is positive and it blazes a trail for others. I am now looking forward for WikiLeaks competitor. ;-)
Femur 16y ago
I would note that the NPR interview referenced and linked within this article is very interesting and informative; I recommend giving it a listen.
api 16y ago
It's sort of amazing that an amateur and somewhat half-assed journalist club is getting this much attention for just reporting the news. Of course, it's because "real journalists" no longer report the news or investigate anything. They just parrot the party line. In a world full of Pravda clones, an amateurish guerilla operation doing actual journalism captures the front pages.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Really? "Real journalists" no longer report the news? So Filkins, Constable, Rohde... the major newsgathering organizations aren't sending people to Kandahar, Peshawar, and out to frontiers, where they aren't being kidnapped or killed? Instead: the guys that relay files, out of context, directly to the web for commentary --- those are the real reporters? Pants are shirts! Read Kaplan's bit in Slate today about the real significance (or lack thereof) of the stuff Wikileaks just dumped: http://www.slate.com/id/2261780/ http://www.slate.com/id/2261780/
  - Rod 16y ago
    If I remember correctly, weapons inspectors were sent to Iraq, they found nothing, and then the U.S. invaded a sovereign nation based on lies. Fox News had reporters embedded with the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and I remember them reporting that "WMD sites had been secured"! It's all a circus. You can have all the journalists you want embedded with ground units in Afghanistan, but if the editors back in NYC or Washington D.C. are constrained, then you won't get the real story. In other words, your argument is a joke. And if you want to cite a credible source of info on these issues, cite STRATFOR's article: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100726_wikileaks_and_afghan_war http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100726_wikileaks_and_afghan...
    - tptacek 16y ago
      The people getting kidnapped and killed are not "embedded" with military units and they're not simply parroting some PR guy's talking points. They're using fixers to get guided tours of Baluchistan to meet Taliban leaders. The people reporting from Peshawar --- literally putting 'Peshawar' in their dateline, like the WaPo has been doing for years --- are not embedded with military units; the US military doesn't have units with embeddings in western Pakistan. But there those reporters are, inconveniently damaging your argument.
joeycfan 16y ago
Pulitzer time.
tkahn6 16y ago
Did anyone else initially think this was related to functional programming?
Natsu 16y ago
I wonder what ever happened with that Wikileaks "insider" writing to Cryptome about how they were planning on shutting the place down? Am I wrong, or does this give us every reason to disbelieve the guy, given that they've been working on this huge leak for quite a while now?

69 points by Flemlord 16y ago

I think it's very dangerous to define and describe WikiLeaks as 'a news organization'. News organizations curate and editorialize content - I hope that WikiLeaks doesn't editorialize their content (I know Julian Assange has talked about 'getting PR for leakers' as a motive, which is concerning). We're still working out what WikiLeaks is as their model is basically something new for the mainstream world that they have not seen before.

api 16y ago
Sure news organizations curate and editorialize content... they ask "is this the official party line?" If the answer is no, they don't print it.
- dotBen 16y ago
  Some do. Ok, most do. I spent 6 years working for BBC News and I didn't see that happen there. But it's a non-corporate news provider.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    I really doubt that many consciously ask whether something fits "the party line". They mostly introduce bias subconsciously in their decisions about what is and isn't "news". Politician A accidentally says something stupid and it's ignored. Politician B accidentally says something stupid and it's "Politician B's Latest Gaffe" on the front page. (Why yes, I do have a specific Politican B in mind, but shan't mention any names to avoid off-topic discussions.) Anyway, it's odd that you would think that being a "non-corporate news provider" would insulate the BBC from bias. What about the natural groupthink which tends to accumulate in organizations insulated from real-world concerns?
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    I wonder when and where? I'm generally a big fan of the BBC but it's not completely above the fray. Thinking back to times I've been living in the UK and the country has gone into war (most recently Iraq), the BBC reported on the political leadup reasonably even-handedly, but as soon as the shooting started Paxman took a break from Newsnight and instead we got Peter Snow running around a giant table with toy tanks on it (Americans: you switch on expecting PBS but get CNN instead).
    - hugh3 16y ago
      Whereas I would, on the other hand, say the BBC was anti-war biased from day one. Which just goes to prove that "unbiased" journalism is impossible, since people only percieve bias when it disagrees with their own biases. It's worth noting that even wikipedia doesn't attempt to be "unbiased" but makes the weaker claim to have a "neutral point of view". And it can only achieve that state via continuous edit wars between people holding all major points of view. And even then it's only an ideal, not a description of the state of wikipedia at any given time.
      - sprout 16y ago
        People perceive bias in the absence of bias. I remember in 2004 when Bush was re-elected, the local paper ran with the headline "Four More Years" and a smiling picture from Bush's victory party. People wrote in and complained that it was a biased headline. They had imagined that the editor who wrote that wrote it with a heavy heart - even though Bush supporters themselves were chanting "four more years" to rally the troops at campaign events.
      - arethuza 16y ago
        "BBC was anti-war biased from day one" My recollection is that the BBC was not biased against previous wars - and I can recall the Falklands & the first Gulf War fairly well. However, for the Second Gulf War they did keep asking "why are we going to war?" - which as it turns out was a perfectly valid question as the justifications for the war (and especially for UK involvement) ranged from rather weak arguments (Saddam is bad) through to outright lies (involvement with 9/11 or WMD). So if the BBC is biased it seems to be biased in favour of the truth.
hugh3 16y ago
I hope that WikiLeaks doesn't editorialize their content (I know Julian Assange has talked about 'getting PR for leakers' as a motive, which is concerning). Wasn't it wikileaks which added the somewhat dubious "interpretation" captions etc to the video which they chose to call "collateral murder"?
ugh 16y ago
But Wikileaks does curate and (to a lesser extent) editorialize. I don’t think that’s a bad things. News organizations without any curation are a pipe dream.
- notahacker 16y ago
  Not an entirely impossible pipe dream though - I'm sure it would be feasible to blur the boundaries between news publishing and anarchic internet fora by algorithmically relegate misleading or non-newsworthy submissions based purely on user preferences.
w1ntermute 16y ago
I hope that WikiLeaks doesn't editorialize their content AFAIK, they don't. For example, in the case of the Afghanistan war logs, they provided the logs to the NYT, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel and left the editorializing up to them.
rdtsc 16y ago
News organizations curate and editorialize content. I guess if you take the Orwellian interpretation. Perhaps the original interpretation fits them best because they just provide the bare documents as the do not editorialize. In other words "new organizations are organization that do nothing but provide news". Of course editorializing takes places when selecting the content. But hopefully the "wiki" part of "wikileaks" is emphasized enough to that everything is available to everyone and the readers get to decide that is more newsworthy for them.

ugh 16y ago

It sounds whimsical but the headline of this article helped me gain a new perspective on Wikileaks. I probably shouldn’t see them as this supposed holier than thou and perfect organization which fails miserably at being just that (especially in the wake of the Collateral Murder video). They are just something like a news organization, with their own biases, their own screw ups (which should be criticized), but they still provide a valuable service to society. The headline helped me come to terms with my ultimately unrealistic expectations of Wikileaks.

greyman 16y ago
I came to the some conclusion after the Collateral Murder video - WikiLeaks is a news organization, which gathers, curate, and sometimes editorialize their content. The only difference is that Internet allows them to be outside the jurisdiction of any concrete state. But they have their own bias and their own agenda, just like any other media. As you said, they provide valuable service to society, but we still need to watch them closely like any other organization. Anyway, what they do I think is positive and it blazes a trail for others. I am now looking forward for WikiLeaks competitor. ;-)

Femur 16y ago

I would note that the NPR interview referenced and linked within this article is very interesting and informative; I recommend giving it a listen.

api 16y ago

It's sort of amazing that an amateur and somewhat half-assed journalist club is getting this much attention for just reporting the news. Of course, it's because "real journalists" no longer report the news or investigate anything. They just parrot the party line. In a world full of Pravda clones, an amateurish guerilla operation doing actual journalism captures the front pages.

tptacek 16y ago
Really? "Real journalists" no longer report the news? So Filkins, Constable, Rohde... the major newsgathering organizations aren't sending people to Kandahar, Peshawar, and out to frontiers, where they aren't being kidnapped or killed? Instead: the guys that relay files, out of context, directly to the web for commentary --- those are the real reporters? Pants are shirts! Read Kaplan's bit in Slate today about the real significance (or lack thereof) of the stuff Wikileaks just dumped: http://www.slate.com/id/2261780/ http://www.slate.com/id/2261780/
- Rod 16y ago
  If I remember correctly, weapons inspectors were sent to Iraq, they found nothing, and then the U.S. invaded a sovereign nation based on lies. Fox News had reporters embedded with the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and I remember them reporting that "WMD sites had been secured"! It's all a circus. You can have all the journalists you want embedded with ground units in Afghanistan, but if the editors back in NYC or Washington D.C. are constrained, then you won't get the real story. In other words, your argument is a joke. And if you want to cite a credible source of info on these issues, cite STRATFOR's article: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100726_wikileaks_and_afghan_war http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100726_wikileaks_and_afghan...
  - tptacek 16y ago
    The people getting kidnapped and killed are not "embedded" with military units and they're not simply parroting some PR guy's talking points. They're using fixers to get guided tours of Baluchistan to meet Taliban leaders. The people reporting from Peshawar --- literally putting 'Peshawar' in their dateline, like the WaPo has been doing for years --- are not embedded with military units; the US military doesn't have units with embeddings in western Pakistan. But there those reporters are, inconveniently damaging your argument.

joeycfan 16y ago

Pulitzer time.

tkahn6 16y ago

Did anyone else initially think this was related to functional programming?

Natsu 16y ago

I wonder what ever happened with that Wikileaks "insider" writing to Cryptome about how they were planning on shutting the place down? Am I wrong, or does this give us every reason to disbelieve the guy, given that they've been working on this huge leak for quite a while now?