Not all leaks are created equal

Judicious care has been shown by both Wikileaks and the media to avoid any potential harm to civilians, a concern perhaps not fully appreciated by Assange with the Iraq and Afghan war logs in 2010.

But where does this leave investigative journalism itself? Middle East correspondent for the Independent Robert Fisk told Al-Jazeera English in late 2010 that the cables made for fascinating reading but risked making the media lazy. Would they simply wait at their computers for the next intriguing cable to drop into their laps? Still nothing beats being on the road and witnessing events in person.

Contributing editor at the Financial Times John Lloyd worries that the sheer volume of Wikileaks documents “reduces investigative journalists to bit players whose job is to redact the output and provide context.”

Perhaps, but journalists should not forget that the alleged leaker, Bradley Manning, didn’t send his treasure trove of documents to the mainstream media but picked a website with a track-record of judiciously disclosing secrets.

Manning’s exact motives are impossible to currently determine but he allegedly told convicted hacker Adrian Lamo in 2010 that the cables contained “almost criminal political back dealings” and had to be exposed to the public.

Media players may have to start getting used to a new form of release; hackers often view complete information transparency as the best way forward. A former collaborator with Assange, Melbourne-based Suelette Dreyfus, wrote in December that the Wikileaks founder had always wanted to “improve the lot of the most oppressed” by “using information which can be replicated endlessly - and cheaply - to promote change for the better.”

As the internet continues to develop, serious journalists have no choice but to appreciate and understand how online communities disseminate information. There are now endless numbers of players willing to share news and a reporter’s job will be to find it and understand its significance. The days of the traditional news drop from a political advisor may be coming to a close; this unhealthy embedding serves nobody except the power and media elites.

Indeed, Wikileaks provided invaluable background to the current turmoil in Egypt and across the Arab world. US diplomats wrote back to Washington that there were concerned with Egyptian bloggers being detained and tortured but the billions of dollars of military aid continued nonetheless. The main concern for the US remains Israel, a message heard loud and clear on the streets of Cairo.

With a majority of Australians according to polls supporting the Wikileaks cable release, politicians and journalists should listen to the wise words of Britain’s independent freedom of information watchdog, Christopher Graham. He recently argued that the relationship between the state and its public has fundamentally changed:

“From the point of view of public scrutiny, the web and the internet has empowered citizens. Governments now need to factor in that things can be Wikileaked…You can’t un-invent Wikileaks. If all of us accept that this is the people’s information and 99.9% should be out there in all its tedium, you wouldn’t have a Wikileaks.”

Attacking Wikileaks for releasing information or claiming the group has revealed nothing new is a predictable tactic of insiders who fear a challenge to the status-quo of cosiness between powerful interests and the media.

We should all celebrate its downfall.