No More Secrets: Al Jazeera and NYT accepting leaks

WikiLeaks has provided a new model of journalism.

-WikiLeaks, About

As Al Jazeera begins publishing The Palestine Papers (presumably acquired through their new Transparency Unit) WikiLeaks’ legacy is already being cemented into the news world everywhere.

The Transparency Unit, introduced earlier in January in the midst of cablegate, gives whistleblowers a place to anonymously upload documents that they hope will make it into the public eye.

Launched in January 2011, the Al Jazeera Transparency Unit (AJTU) aims to mobilize its audience – both in the Arab world and further afield – to submit all forms of content (documents, photos, audio & video clips, as well as “story tips”) for editorial review and, if merited, online broadcast and transmission on our English and Arabic-language broadcasts.

We believe that this initiative will allow Al Jazeera’s supporters to shine light on notable and newsworthy government and corporate activities which might otherwise go unreported.

In other words: WikiLeaks 2. WikiLeaks’ “About” page contains similar concepts and the philosophy is nearly exactly the same.

Before WikiLeaks, such an approach to information gathering might be frowned upon as irresponsible and unethical – in the journalism world, the use of anonymous sources is a dangerous step away from accountability.

What news organizations (up to now) have failed to see is that the WikiLeaks model follows naturally from the world wide web and, frankly, it’s surprising that it didn’t happen sooner.

Early on in online news, user comments were encouraged and rarely censored. Free speech at its finest, everyone thought. Unfortunately, users hiding behind a cloak of internet anonymity began to degrade discourse in the comments section to a point where it wasn’t worth having unmoderated comments sections. Gene Weingarten put it best:

I basically like “comments,” though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It’s as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots.

The internet-induced anonymity of users degraded online news instead of enhancing it. WikiLeaks turned that around. We will always have commenters with the intelligence of a goldfish making racist comments as “xXx_WH!tePWR_xx” (though hopefully those will be moderated by now). Now, though, we see the other side of that coin as anonymous users bring to light aspects of corporate and political discourse that were previously safe behind closed doors.

Raffi Khatchadourian, who wrote an excellent profile of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, raises the vital question:

Has Al Jazeera taken the first step in a journalism arms race to begin acquiring mass document leaks?

Yes.

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller told Yahoo’s Cutline blog that the paper was considering putting together a similar unit.

Executive editor Bill Keller told The Cutline that he couldn’t go into details, “especially since nothing is nailed down.” But when asked if he could envision a system like Al Jazeera’s  Transparency Unit, Keller said the paper has been “looking at something along those lines.”

While WikiLeaks’ fate may be unknown – Assange’s extradition hearing on February 7 and 8 could land him on trial in Sweden for rape charges and/or ultimately in the U.S. (maybe as Bradley Manning’s neighbor) – but Assange has already accomplished his mission. No secrets are safe.

WikiWhat? Al Jazeera leaks too

Photo: WikiMedia Commons

Al Jazeera and The Guardian began releasing nearly 1,700 files yesterday in the largest release of leaked files since WikiLeaks began its release of U.S. diplomatic cables in November.

The files, dubbed “The Palestine Papers,” expose more than a decade of Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Al Jazeera’s webpage introducing the files describes what they will disclose.

Al Jazeera will release the documents between January 23-26th, 2011. They will reveal new details about:

• the Palestinian Authority’s willingness to concede illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, and to be “creative” about the status of the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount;
• the compromises the Palestinian Authority was prepared to make on refugees and the right of return;
• details of the PA’s security cooperation with Israel;
• and private exchanges between Palestinian and American negotiators in late 2009, when the Goldstone Report was being discussed at the United Nations.

The papers were leaked anonymously, but directly to Al Jazeera. The organization does not plan to disclose the source.

Because of the sensitive nature of these documents, Al Jazeera will not reveal the source(s) or detail how they came into our possession. We have taken great care over an extended period of time to assure ourselves of their authenticity.

I posted last week about WikiLeaks losing its monopoly in the world of anonymous leaking organizations. However, traditional media organizations, The Palestine Papers show, have never fallen off the map.

With the media craze around WikiLeaks, The Palestine Papers are glass of icewater to the face of all of us who forgot that traditional, mainstream media outlets can (and will) publish leaked documents as well.

The question here isn’t “why did this leak happen?” – every leaker has their own personal set of motivations – but why Al Jazeera? The news organization based in Qatar has a strong reputation for editorial independence, but so does WikiLeaks. Plus, the latter is in the public eye far more than Al Jazeera recently.

Perhaps the chaos and controversy surrounding WikiLeaks and Julian Assange drove this source to seek another outlet for the documents. Despite this controversy, the information being leaked by WikiLeaks recently has not been proven untrue and the trustworthiness of the organization has not been compromised by Julian Assange’s questionable sexual endeavors.

It will be interesting to see as these stories unfold how the publisher of the documents causes the coverage to differ from that of information disclosed by WikiLeaks.

An often-mentioned difference between WikiLeaks and traditional, mainstream media outlets is that traditional outlets often write stories with excerpts of or references to original documents, but do not post the actual documents. In this case, though, Al Jazeera is releasing entire documents. A practice that may become common in the wake of WikiLeaks’ methods.