International

There’s been a lot of fuss lately over Mr. Julian Assange. For those who may have been living under a rock, he’s the person responsible for the creation of WikiLeaks.

Whatever your feelings may be towards him or his company, hear me out first. In my ethics class yesterday Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia’s J-School, came to speak and we had a very rousing discussion about what makes Mr. Assange any different than a major news organization. The immediate answer was that he has broken the law, violated national security, and has caused a deterioration of diplomatic relations. But has he really?

If you look at the situation a little differently, I think you may find yourself in the middle of the road. For starters, WikiLeaks is a nonprofit, meaning Assange has absolutely no financial incentives from releasing this information. He also has a very similar mission to that of most news organizations. Let’s analyze:

Abridged mission statement of The New York Times:

“The Company’s core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.”

Abridged mission statement of WikiLeaks:

“WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organization. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public.”

Now are those two things so different?

You may argue that I am overgeneralizing here a bit, and I will admit that this is a very simplified point. But if you really think about it, Assange hasn’t broken any laws. Despite all the hoopla about the 250,000 “cables” that WikiLeaks has, Assange has released just a little over 1000 of them. So far nothing he has released has caused any significant damage, and none of the information was new. Spreading around an old e-mail or two (that’s really what they are, cables is just a retro reference to way back when) isn’t a reason for people on Fox News to call for the government to assassinate Assange.

Here’s another way of looking at it. I’m a journalist, meaning I’m basically open for business in terms of receiving and publishing confidential documents. That’s what journalists do, we expose things to make the world a better place. If someone sticks a flash drive or a stack of documents full of confidential government information, who am I to not use that info, especially when the story I write will expose wrongdoing and make government accountable? I don’t know any journalist who wouldn’t use those documents in one way or another. Obviously there would be fact-checking and vetting necessary but you can bet they would be used.

Assange has basically the same principle. When he founded WikiLeaks, he did so under the auspices of making government more open and holding people accountable. He operates under the logic that information should be free and open. Isn’t that what journalists do? I’m not calling him a journalist by any means, but think about it. What makes what Assange is doing so wrong? Think about what could have happened to journalism if the government shut down The New York Times’ website for publishing the Pentagon papers, or censored The Washington Post because of watergate, or any other expository journalism the way WikiLeaks has been attacked. I shudder to think.

And let’s not forget that while mainstream media is either condemning Assange or sitting on the fence, many of the big news orgs are using these “cables” to write stories. They are doing what journalists have done since the beginning of journalism: using a leak to break the story. It’s what we do.

As Anna Edgerton said in class; do I think we need to know every name that diplomats call each other behind closed doors? No. Do I think that people should know when the government is planning to assassinate people for unnecessary reasons? Yes.

Ahmed Al Omran, a fellow journalism friend,  was mentioned in one of the WikiLeaks, and the information is certainly not life threatening.

Government, by definition, is secretive. Journalists, therefore, are nosey and exposing. It’s just the way the world works. Assange may not be a “journalist” per say, but he’s certainly opened the discussion on the new digital world of journalism. I think things like WikiLeaks will only continue to pop up as technological advances continue to surface. Get used to it world, the Internet age is here and it’s not going anywhere.