US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment

[kentuck]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-wikileaks

<snip>
Is it justified? Should a newspaper disclose virtually all a nation's secret diplomatic communication, illegally downloaded by one of its citizens? The reporting in the Guardian of the first of a selection of 250,000 US state department cables marks a recasting of modern diplomacy. Clearly, there is no longer such a thing as a safe electronic archive, whatever computing's snake-oil salesmen claim. No organisation can treat digitised communication as confidential. An electronic secret is a contradiction in terms.

Anything said or done in the name of a democracy is, prima facie, of public interest. When that democracy purports to be "world policeman" – an assumption that runs ghostlike through these cables – that interest is global. Nonetheless, the Guardian had to consider two things in abetting disclosure, irrespective of what is anyway published by WikiLeaks. It could not be party to putting the lives of individuals or sources at risk, nor reveal material that might compromise ongoing military operations or the location of special forces.

...........more

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[gratuitous]

2. It's not? Has the New York Times been informed?

Their Judith Miller reports, as well as Elisabeth Bumiller's weekly valentine to George W. Bush, sure made me think differently. Not to mention the Washington Post, ABC, NBC and CBS, and their credulous reportage, sparing the Bush administration from not only mere embarrassment, but covering up aspects of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Now that raw intelligence is out in public with no hope of being glossed over, our fearless bulldogs of the Fourth Estate suddenly remember that their job isn't just to nap on the porch.

[kentuck]

3. You tell 'em...

I'm too mad.