How WikiLeaks Could Change the Way Reporters Deal With Secrets (ProPublica)

[kpete]

How WikiLeaks Could Change the Way Reporters Deal With Secrets

by Stephen Engelberg
ProPublica, 9 minutes ago


For the past several decades, there has been an informal understanding between the reporters who uncovered newsworthy secrets and the government intelligence agencies, which tried to keep them from public view.

We would tell senior officials what we'd learned. And they would point out any unforeseen consequences that might arise from publication, such as the death of an American informant. Ultimately, the call on what appeared rested with editors. But it was a decision informed by more than our own guesswork.

The release of more than 75,000 classified documents by WikiLeaks this week makes that arrangement seem as quaint as vinyl records and typewriters. Julian Assange, the organization's leader and avowed opponent of the war in Afghanistan, told Amy Goodman, host of the radio program Democracy Now, that he saw no reason for reporters to take such precautions.

"We don't see, in the case of a story where an organization has engaged in some kind of abusive conduct and that story is being revealed, that it has a right to know the story before the public, a right to know the story before the victims, because we know that what happens in practice is that that is just extra lead time to spin the story <1>," Assange told Democracy Now (2).

more:
http://www.propublica.org/article/how-wikileaks-could-change-the-way-reporters-deal-with-secrets

[villager]

1. Well first, mainstream media would have to have actual "reporters," instead of

...paid readers for press releases...

[joeybee12]

3. ...and stenographers...n/t

[bemildred]

2. Somebody ought to mention the abject failure of Congress to fulfill its oversight role.

But it's a new world now, whatever they do.