Over Half of 2011's New York Times Issues Rely on WikiLeaks

[n2doc]

BY CAITLIN DICKSON
04:59 PM ET

Today's New York Times prominently features "The Guantanamo Files," a synthesis of "700 classified military documents" obtained by WikiLeaks, about the Cuba prison's current and former inmates. It's the latest blockbuster data cache to be trumpeted by the paper. And though the paper has had a complicated relationship with the secret-sharing site run by Julian Assange since the two partnered up for a post-Thanksgiving barrage of "State's Secrets" last year, the paper has become increasingly reliant on its documents.

By our count, on 63 days so far this year the paper's reporters have relied on WikiLeaks documents as sources for their stories. Since April 25th is the 115th day of the year, that's over half of all their issues this year. And just to be clear, we didn't count stories that merely mentioned WikiLeaks or Julian Assange or Bradley Manning, only the ones that used documents from the site as a reporting source.

It now seems routine for WikiLeaks to serve as a source when it comes to American diplomacy, especially regarding the Middle East. Sometimes these stories are billed as revelations from WikiLeaks' cache, such as the March 2 story by James Risen on the Qaddafi sons' bitter business battles which was headlined, "2 Qaddafis Fought Over Business, Cables Show." But often the WikiLeak-ed documents are used as a stand-in for an American diplomatic spokesperson, source or expert. A typical example is the recent feature on Muammar Qaddafi's illegitimate means of acquiring wealth.

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http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/04/over-half-2011s-new-york-times-issues-use-wikileaks/37009/

[mike_c]

1. American journalism is at an all-time low point, I think....

They print PR as news, and rely on others to do investigative journalism because so few news organizations want to do anything more important than boost ratings or attract advertisers.

[Luminous Animal]

2. I'd like to think that this would shut up the "the cables are only gossip" people. But it want.

K & R.

[n2doc]

3. kick n/t