Wikileaks; a new tool for Journalism? A source for investigative Journalism made easy with Wikileaks, is it another value added tool for Journalist? Should Journalist depend on Wikileaks? Should Journalist use Wikileaks at all? Can Journalist depends on Wikileaks?
A few weeks ago I discovered Wikileaks after a co-worker showed me a video of how U.S Navy operates during a mission in Afghan War. It has a video of two Apache Helicopter intercepted what appear to be part of a rebel group with weapons. The video was longer than 10 minutes long. I wonder how this video could be up in Wikileaks in the first place. It might or might not be confidential to begin with, but if we can learn about this video, well, then so can those who seek to destroy U.S. Learning how we operate and how we execute every command, or maybe they already know, but with Wikileaks, it’s so easy. Too easy. But I’m not here to talk about ethical exercise of Wikileaks, I’m just awed at the video and start to wonder the what ifs.
Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, were asked if Wikileaks better to be separate from investigative Journalism? Would being associated with a news organization subject it to different standards of verification and transparency? “I think it’s better separate,” Rusbridger responded. Wikileaks does things the paper wouldn’t want to do or couldn’t do. And a paper is easier to attack by governments and companies; it has greater liability than a stateless news organization, as Jay Rosen calls them. “I think the Afghan leaks make the case for journalism,” Rusbridger said. “We had the people and expertise to make sense of it.”
Alright, so Wikileaks is there, what is the advantage for Journalism? The internet is so easy for us to find information, Wikileaks proves itself that it doesn’t need News Media Companies to support it, it can do so by itself. Information on the internet after all is free. Wikileaks would be a good way for collaboration, just like what Guardian did with CommentisFree. So we can see Wikileaks to be an added value for Journalist, without second guessing, and sources can be from different places, add Wikileaks to one more source now.
But as a Journalist, information can be found easily, shouldn’t just be a stenographer, but should also add value to the story. A story without opinions or perspective won’t be as good as an original story found. As long as Wikileaks is credited where it belongs, Journalist could save money, resources and time. And I believe in news collaboration, lets hope it’s going to the right direction with Wikileaks and CommentisFree.
Can we depend on Wikileaks? Just like Wikipedia, anyone can put information in, so information might or might not be reliable. Thus, Wikileaks is just merely a tool for double checking and re-checking with your source. Wikileaks would just be a provider for Journalism to add maximum value to the story.
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Eberhard
Eberhard, twitter @powercx, likes to write as a hobby, and he loves the media. Likes to play with gadget toys, plays with any cool Software for smartphone, PC or Mac and writes his own review. His review is unbiased and not sponsored. Even though Powercx.com has been around since '96, he didn't start blogging till '98. His Tech experience is with Cisco Systems and Wells Fargo as an avid backend web developer with JSP, PHP, ASP, CSS, and Javascript as well as a part time Web Designer on the side does not end there.
This site is about all type of gadgets that he will encounter with. From cool Software that comes with the Hardware, or any Hardware that comes with heavy interest in the community. He will be posting at least two post a week.
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