By: Jordan Press

Jordan Press — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:30:32 +0000

Thanks for the comment and I appreciate the disagreement because I was not totally satisfied with the titles attached to WikiLeaks as either being a news or information organization. You bring up a good point about journalism values, but what values do all journalists agree upon? A duty to the truth? I hope so. A duty to inform the public? I expect so. Being balanced and fair? Likely. Being a watchdog organization? I suspect so. However, journalists/news organizations will disagree on the means to reach those stated values. I struggled with this aspect of WikiLeaks and didn't know how to resolve the lingering questions in my head about it and I still don't. I will disagree with you on the point that a news organization employs journalists. I was at a talk several months ago with the CBC's Linden MacIntyre and asked him who in this new media universe is a journalist. He sat there and smiled. "That's the million-dollar question," he answered. In a sense, anyone can be a journalist — they don't have to be employed by a news organization to ply their craft — but, as you point out, they have to follow journalistic values. I just don't think they have to be employed by a news organization to be called a journalist.

By: lurid tales of doom

lurid tales of doom — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:45:03 +0000

Nice well-written post, very interesting. I think I currently disagree with you on your criteria for being a journalism organisation though. If I was feeling particularly awkward I could make those terms meet a private school or any number of lobby groups. For me it’s a simpler industry-defined matter, a journalism organisation would be one that employs journalists to carry out their craft with the professional skills and values the job requires. Wikileaks do not, so they are not. Instead, they’re just what they appear to be, a leak site run by an affiliation of hackers and engineers – it’s not a particularly new or unique phenomenon. Nor do I think they’ve ever claimed to be a journalism organisation, they’re a data blog run by a transparency pressure group who make leaks and related press releases available to journalism organisations as part of their strategy. Surely some of them do have grand Voltaire pretensions towards over-coming self interest and keeping the human race informed as a stateless news-provider, but first and foremost they’re just another pressure group.

Comments on: Is WikiLeaks a news site?

By: Jordan Press

By: lurid tales of doom