(Untitled)

[postrodent]

So CNN is quoting the Wikileaks documents in their reporting now-- in fact, in this article on Mohamed Tantawi, they hardly do anything else. One paragraph of lede saying who the guy is. One paragraph for a quote from an American military official. Three paragraphs of capsule bio and service record. *Eight paragraphs* dishing up the dirt from the

Comments

[ff00ff]

Fifth estate? Which is the forth again, then?

Yes, it's ironic to see CNN gleefully assembling panel discussions to determine the questions "Is Wikileaks a terrorist organization?" And then they silently realize that wikileaks is a gold mine of primary sources, and Assange was kind of doing their job for them. It's deplorable how whatever Fox news will determine by fiat of its opinion commentators, CNN will only somewhat more tepidly begin to debate in a panel discussion with their ridiculous cast of pundits.

[postrodent]

Augh, I meant the fourth estate. It's all the fault of these guys. And the cold that I wrote this under the influence of.

I was groping around for this -- the whiplashing discontinuity between the idea, given serious play in the media, that Wikileaks were evil terroristic terrorists, and CNN's apparent willingness to blithely copy-paste a bunch of material out of the Wikileaks docs.

[krinndnz]

I don't know, I think it does illustrate that they're pretty craven. They denounce Wikileaks when it's convenient to that, and piggyback on the risk and danger that the Wikileaks crew undertook, the rest of the time. This is, as far as I can tell, entirely consistent with their track record.

[crankycoyote]

The American press will do whatever is easiest. Any corporate press organization must follow the master dictate of their parent organism: maximize shareholder value. Whether that means issuing corporation-written press releases as news when it's convenient or trolling through what they've been handed by Wikileaks, it's all about getting the most number of eyeballs on the advertising for the minimum amount of effort.

One of the not-great things that Wikileaks has done in my opinion is to aid and abet this by parceling out cables in dribs and drabs to organizations they find worthy rather than putting the entire archive out there for us, the unwashed public, to read. Instead of showing us a new way to get information and really shine that flashlight around, they themselves are guilty of leveraging the gift they were given by Bradley Manning (or whomever) into fame and power by extension for Assange and the Wikileaks brand.

[postrodent]

"The American press will do whatever is easiest" -- yeah, that rings pretty true. If it was unprofitable to be a stenographer to power, they wouldn't do it.

Also, I agree, Wikileaks, and specifically Assange, are doing the work of god, but they do seem to be very concerned that they get the most press ink out of it possible. :p