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This is a movie about freedom of speech, self-censorship in media, and which people are really put at risk by publishing cables (hint: corruption and organized
by andor 13y ago
This is a movie about freedom of speech, self-censorship in media, and which people are really put at risk by publishing cables (hint: corruption and organized crime).
Short summary, including spoilers:
A group of Wikileaks-affiliated journalists tries to find media partners in the -stan countries that would publish Wikileaks cables locally. The meetings with those organizations are set up as interviews about free speech in their respective countries. As a surprise in those meetings, they are offered the cables about their own country. They film the initial reactions, try to sign a gentlemen's agreement about how the cables should be handled, and follow up if any stories were published. It's really interesting to see what happens. Some sign the agreement, but don't publish anything. One guy in Kazakhstan actually says that he doesn't want democracy. The editor of a newspaper in Turkmenistan that they speak to turns out to be a member of parliament. That newspaper has a picture of Turkmenistan's president on it's front page every day.
Then, Alan Rusbridger from The Guardian and Bill Keller from the NYT are interviewed. It's astonishing to see that media in the US and UK have similar fears than those in the -stan countries. For example, Assange criticized that The Guardian redacted the names of a mafia boss, who according to cables had close ties with Uzbekistan's president. They apparently did this because they fear libel lawsuits, in which the burden of proof would lie on the libeler.