WikiLeaks

Quote of the Week: Jemima Khan

“WikiLeaks – whose mission statement was “to produce a more just society based upon truth” – has been guilty of the same obfuscation and misinformation as those it sought to expose, while its supporters are expected to follow, unquestioningly, in blinkered, cultish devotion.”

- Jemima Khan, a writer and human rights campaigner. Associate Director of the New Statesmen. She’s former supporter of WikiLeaks.

Quote from the article, Jemima Khan on Julian Assange: how the Wikileaks founder alienated his allies, NewStatesman, February 6, 2013.

A Legion of (Wiki)Leaks

Just read a prescient New Yorker blog post on the sudden proliferation of plans for in-house Wikileaks-style operations at major media outlets. Al Jazeera started this trend with its "Transparency Unit," and the New York Times is now said to be developing something similar. It can't be long before others jump on the bandwagon. Author Raffi Khatchadourian (who authored this New Yorker profile of Julian Assange last year) does a nice job of attempting to map the just-emerging implications of this (possible) trend. Says Khatchadourian: "If the WikiLeaks model were to grow beyond WikiLeaks - much in the way social networking outgrew its earliest online incarnations - and develop more fully within the ambit of conventional media, it is likely that it would change in a way that reflects the different sources of authority that a stateless publisher and a conventional news organization each draw upon."

Why You Need to Become 'Mediactive'

“We're in an age of information overload, and too much of what we watch, hear and read is mistaken, deceitful or even dangerous. Yet you and I can take control and make media serve us --all of us--by being active consumers and participants.”

This statement appears on the cover of Dan Gillmor’s newly launched publication, Mediactive. In the book, Gillmor, director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, provides tips and tools for how citizens can (and need to) become active consumers and producers of information.

Subduing the Media for Dummies

“Propaganda must be centralized, planned, and executed by a single authority.

To get attention, propaganda is best distributed through an entertaining communication medium.

Propaganda must be carefully timed for maximum effect.

Propaganda is a tool of social control, designed to comfort the public in times of stress."

--Goebbel's Principles of Propaganda--

WANTED (a communication professional to save WikiLeaks and) JULIAN ASSANGE

Stockholm Criminal Court warrants, rumors that the US Senate will dub Julian Assange a “transnational threat”, conspiracy theories, and all other charges aside, the international transparency vessel that is WikiLeaks started sending out mayday signals the day that Daniel Domscheit-Berg (alias Daniel Schmitt) stepped down as spokesperson for WikiLeaks. I believe that many of the organizations problems began when founder and spokesperson became one-and-the-same.

A New Media Model for the Developing World?

Since the last post about Wikileaks on this blog, the site has drawn the world's attention with its release of nearly 100,000 classified military documents from the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Commentators have lined up on multiple sides, alternatively praising the site for its commitment to open information, condemning its disregard for troop security, or bemoaning the lack of explanatory discourse surrounding the data. Andrew Exum, who served in Afghanistan, criticizes the site's fusion of activism and journalism, while my friend Jeremy Wagstaff thinks that it both shows up the traditional media and points the way toward a fundamental re-imagining of journalism itself.

Sanctioned Secrecy: EurekAlert!

Is secrecy the anti-thesis of transparency or an important tool in a reformist’s toolbox? In a world struggling for transparency is there a role for secrecy. A number of reputable medical and science journals including the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA), the New England Journal of Medicine and Science magazine seem to think so. They have been practicing the fine art of secrecy since their inception. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, "Triple A-S" (AAAS), an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world and publisher of Science magazine, is even in on it. In fact, Triple A-S created a website to help further the cause of secrecy, more commonly called embargoed news. The site is EurekAlert! and it is currently available in both English and Chinese.

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