Wikileaks Targets the Local News Frontier 57
Posted
by
kdawson
from the think-locally-disrupt-globally dept.
from the think-locally-disrupt-globally dept.
eldavojohn writes "Wikileaks has been pretty successful on a global scale — from ACTA documents to East Anglian e-mails, it is the definitive place to find suppressed documents. But some are saying that now Wikileaks should begin focusing on a local level. From the article: 'The organization has applied for a $532,000 two-year grant from the Knight Foundation to expand the use of its secure, anonymous submission system by local newspapers. The foundation's News Challenge will give as much as $5 million this year to projects that use digital technology to transform community news. WikiLeaks proposes using the grant to encourage local newspapers to include a link to WikiLeaks' secure, anonymous servers so that readers can submit documents on local issues or scandals. The newspapers would have first crack at the material, and after a period of time — perhaps two weeks, [German Wikileaks spokesman Daniel] Schmitt said — the documents would be made public on the main WikiLeaks page.' Anyone reading this who works for a community news source and would like to host sensitive documents with no risk: here is your solution."
A simple problem. (Score:1, Interesting)
Wouldn't this defeat the purpose of anonymization? I mean, the newspaper columnist would be the logical target for who to pursue after something finds its way through this channel. I guess the newspaper itself would have to print the article on the subject anonymously, which doesn't help it much more than printing the leak directly under the same conditions, because they could still be traced (after all, they wrote the article on it) by their subjects. I guess the real benefit would be making sure it's etched in stone, post-apocalypse.
Newspapers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why release the documents to newspapers before releasing to the public?
I feel that the public should be able to view the entire document when the newspaper does -- instead of being spoon fed snippets of the document by the media for two weeks.
Only for... (Score:3, Interesting)
company x to come to the UK and file a super injunction against the press reporting on the leaked information.
Re:A simple problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't this defeat the purpose of anonymization? I mean, the newspaper columnist would be the logical target for who to pursue after something finds its way through this channel. I guess the newspaper itself would have to print the article on the subject anonymously, which doesn't help it much more than printing the leak directly under the same conditions, because they could still be traced (after all, they wrote the article on it) by their subjects. I guess the real benefit would be making sure it's etched in stone, post-apocalypse.
It's a good question, and important that people understand it, so here goes. The scenario is as follows:
Now, specifically regarding your question ... it would not defeat the purpose of anonymous submission. The newspaper columnist knows nothing about the person who actually submitted the information. The columnist only knows the information through Wikileaks. The newspaper would print an article by a columnist attributing the information to an anonymous source. The columnist is not anonymous - but they're not the one who leaked the information, so it's all good.
It's actually a pretty cool idea, but I am worried about the fire it would draw from the Powers That Be regarding Wikileaks. Enough power (read: governments) can trace and stop it, and maybe de-anonymize the incoming stream with enough resources. Wikileaks must either become recognized as an asset or ride below that threshold.
there's another angle (Score:5, Interesting)
By helping reporters to more quickly arrive at the heart of the story, WikiLeaks Local just might turn around the industry!
The problem isn't just paying people to research and verify stories. The problem is lso that people who are rich and don't like their dirty laundry being in the papers, tend to use their money to threaten papers with legal action. Small papers have to tremble and retreat. Big papers won't cave.
Case and point would be the community newspaper which investigated condo conversion developers [dotnews.com]. The story had to be handed off to the Boston Globe, because the Globe could afford to tell the developers to Just Try And Sue Us.
Clearly the story that Chris Lovett was uncovering "had legs," as we in the newspaper business used to say. The buy-rehab-sell-foreclose matrix called for a deep looksee that would by its nature be extensive, expensive, and full of extraordinary challenges for a local newspaper and its intrepid freelance reporter.
Soon enough came a letter to Lovett from a lawyer from the law firm representing Scott warning him that his continuing reporting could result in serious legal consequences for him and the Reporter.
No newspaper worth its ink falls back in the face of such an admonition against the quality of its news report, but reality does intervene in terms of staff size, the money needed to pursue a story with so many tentacles, the time needed to dot all the "I's", and the will and financial resources to deal with a defense of its actions and those of its trusted reporter in the legal arena should things come to that.
So the Reporter's pursuit of the ending to this story was stalled.
Enter an eminent investigative reporter named Walter V. Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize winner with The Boston Globe's Spotlight Team, which he directed in its world-shaking probe into the priest-abuse scandal in the archdiocese of Boston. I happened to be playing a round of golf with him and I mentioned the Lovett two-parter to him, saying that the Reporter and Chris had gone as far as we could with the story, given our resources.
After some discussion, Robinson, retired but holding a continuing affiliation with the Globe, managed to get the story onto the paper's agenda and the result of that almost a year later was this past Sunday's lead-story Page One presentation of the Michael David Scott real estate story that ran across two full pages inside.
Re:Better Reporting On The Way. (Score:3, Interesting)
Afraid I have to disagree with you there. In the UK at least, there are many bloggers whose output is verifiably more truthful, better-written and more apropos than that of most "professional" journalists. While the journalists are concentrating on how many women Tiger Woods has slept with, how breakfast is good for you and generally toeing the corporate party line, there are bloggers like this chap: Anton Vowl [blogspot.com] who writes coherent (if occasionally profane) and well-researched articles about important issues - often pointing out where the "proper" journalists have got it wrong and then admitted it later in very small writing.
The quality of bloggers is just as variable as the quality of journalists. From the many examples of cut-and-paste journalism that have been seen lately, it would appear that "following up on leads, research and fact-checking" are far less of a priority than publishing the latest celebrity scandal or product press release.
Re:Better Reporting On The Way. (Score:3, Interesting)
Bloggers have their place. They're not journalists in the traditional sense, but they're not useless either. Bloggers can spread disinformation if they are careless or malicious. But most often than not, they also have a reputation to uphold, and for those catered to a more educated crowd, they have to do just as much work as any traditional journalist to ensure their stories are accurate.
Bloggers differ from journalists in that their articles are always opinionated. They offer a biased view of the world, which makes them more attractive to the people who share the same biases. This is why they're so specialized. There's no blog for "everything" (not even a place like Fark) because there's a whole lot of everything and bloggers can't catch up. But the intense specialization is the value of blogs. Instead of having journalists who do journalism very well write about technology, law, foreign affairs, recipies, parenthood, etc., specialists in each respective field write about their field, and often for other like-minded people.
Ideally, blogs fit into the space between traditional journalism and trade journals. But traditional journalism is so desperate to jump on the blog bandwagon they've started to lose themselves.
Re:Not so much (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm from Portland Oregon son. I'm sure there are good cops, but the bad ones make the news a lot.
They've been talking about ending racial profiling for 20 years. A cursory glance at the county sherrifs inmate list(1267 people) seems to indicate they primarily arrest black and hispanic men. 48% of the time an officer pulls his gun, no arrest is made. Black men are on the receiving side of 29% of all use of force incidents, despite them making up just 6% of the city population.
Then there's the case of Kendra James, shot and killed for trying to flee after being pulled over. The wikipedia entry is wrong on that one by the way. She wasn't trying to run over the policeman standing next to her car-that was his opinion of the matter because he happened to be standing next to the car when she put it in gear. Instead of backing away, he pulled and fired. He left her bleeding in handcuffs and she died on that street. The policeman involved in this incident was never charged.
Then there's the case of James Chasse, a 40something schizophrenic who got the attention of 2 police officers and a deputy sheriff. They approached, he ran, they pursued. They beat him so bad they broke 26 of his bones and punctured a lung. He died on the way from the jail to the hospital. It's a little unclear why they took him to jail first, considering the beating they gave him. No officers admitted to using force capable of breaking bones, despite numerous eyewitness accounts that they kicked, elbowed and punched him repeatedly. No charges were filed and all 3 police were cleared. The city just settled with James' family for $925,000 and the internal affairs investigation results are not being released to the public.
If you're still reading, here's another story. Christopher Humphreys, one of the officers who beat James Chasse to death is back on the street again after another suspension. He shot a bean bag from his shotgun at a 12 year old girl for resisting arrest. Again, no charges filed.
Think it's an isolated incident? The police chief reinstated Humphreys because the police union threatened to release the results of a no-confidence vote in the chief, which could have cost the chief his job. The policemen support each other, no matter how far off base their actions are.
That's not freedom and liberty. It's tyranny. Most people don't care that much because they've never been on the wrong end of a tazer, bean bag, or police fist.