Wikileaks Is PopBitch For A Lazy Media
WIKILEAKS has done it again: giving lazy hacks information on a plate and then letting them edit the stuff and fill pages of copy with diplomatic mutterings that may or may not have been tampered with. It’s Popbitch for celebrity politics.
(You trust Wikileaks and all the hands in the food chain between the source and the press to give you’re the goods unedited and as given? Why?)
Sod protecting sources and spending time building trust and getting to the truth. The desperate news media will just take whatever you have and pass the buck. It wasn’t us, yer honour. Get Julian Assange. He made us publish it. He knew how much we needed the money and the fame. Blame him. Blame Bradley Manning, the man many allege leaked the leaks. He said it was easy.
So, why did no investigative hack keen on freedom of information go it? No budget. Reporting is a largely desk-bond job. Sit tight and let the story some to you.
It’s the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal Mark 2. The Telegraph did no sleuthing. It was just offered a job lot of information and while the Sun passed over the chance and kept its money, the Telegraph seized the opportunity to cut through its usual diet of press releases and news wire missives.
The biggest joke is that Wikileaks claims to be about freedom and transparency. So, why was CNN asked to sign a confidentiality clause before Wikileaks would release the stuff to it? (CNN declined.)
Wikileaks wants the US – that softest, litigious target – to be accountable. What Wikileaks shows you is the truth, clear, clean and unredacted. Look! So we look. The media shouts and hollers. But we don’t have all the facts. We have snapshots of chatter not from the state but from employees of it. If one thing can be gleaned from the missives it is that at this confidential level the US allows its operatives to speak freely. Anyone want to see the Chinese equivalent messages? Do you think it would be big on jokes?
And what have we learnt? Well, Iranians are not Arabs. Yeah, who knew? The Middle East is not one big foaming gob of phlegm–faced nutters aimed at destroying Israel and dominating the world, as the pigeon-yellers in the shopping precinct tells us. Not all Muslims get on and speak a with common voice. Arabs fear Iran getting a big nuclear bomb and pointing it where it likes. It can hit Moscow? Well, it can hit Saudi Arabia and Jordan a darn sight easier.
What’s that you say? Silvio Berlusconi hosts great parties?! Colonel Gaddafi likes his nurses blonde with big knockers and holding a vial of Botox?! The Yemeni air force is only one of the top 15 air forces in the Middle East and not the mighty as we imagine it to be?! William Hague lived with a gay man called Alan Duncan!?
And these cables are so damaging, how? This Italian politician calls them the “9/11 for diplomacy”. He;s not even joking. But the military are not too upset nor worried. Get this from on high:
From: Andrew Vallance
Sent: Fri 26/11/2010 12:42
To: Sunday Telegraph; Ian Martin; Sunday Telegraph; Channel Five; Caroline Wyatt; C4 News Desk; Sun; Kevin Brown; Sunday Mail; Mail on Sunday; Five TV; Associated Press TV; William Lewis; Tim Marshall; Press Gazette; Allister Heath; Jonathan Collett; Daily Telegraph; Daily Record; Evening Standard; Daily Star; Independent on Sunday; Observer; Foresight News; Daily Express; Sunday Times; Financial Times; Associated Press; Times; Spark FM; chris wissun; Sunday Mirror; Sunday Herald; News of the World; Tom Newton-Dunn; Stephen Abell; Scotsman; Press Association; BFBS Will Inglis; Will Gore; Mark Birdsall; Guardian; Daily Mail; Daily Mirror; People; Foresight News; Telegraph Legal; Glenmore Trenear-Harvey; Sunday Post; Reuters; ITV News Desk; Independent; Evening Times; Jonathan Grun; Glasgow Herald; Five TVSubject: DA Notice Letter of Advice to All UK Editors – Further Wikileaks Disclosures
To All Editors
Impending Further National Security Disclosures by Wikileaks
I understand that Wikileaks will very shortly release a further mass of US official documents onto its internet website. The full scope of the subject matter covered by these documents remains to be seen, but it is possible that some of them may contain information that falls within the UK’s Defence Advisory Notice code. Given the large number of documents thought to be involved, it is unlikely that sensitive UK national security information within these documents would be recognised by a casual browser. However, aspects of national security might be put at risk if a major UK media news outlet brought such information into obvious public prominence through its general publication or broadcast.Therefore, may I ask you to seek my advice before publishing or broadcasting any information drawn from these latest Wikileaks’ disclosures which might be covered by the five standing DA Notices. In particular, would you carefully consider information that might be judged to fall within the terms of DA Notice 1 (UK Military Operations, Plans and Capabilities) and DA Notice 5 (UK Intelligence Services and Special Forces). May I also ask you to bear in mind the potential consequential effects of disclosing information which would put at risk the safety and security of Britons working or living in volatile regions where such publicity might trigger violent local reactions, for example Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan?
As always, I am available 24/7 to offer DA Notice guidance…
Yours Sincerely,
Andrew Vallance
Air Vice-Marshal
Secretary, Defence Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee
No new ‘D’ notice has been issued. Things have just carried on.
And you start to wonder that if Wikileaks is all for openness and transparency, we do not know more about it; and why America is always the bad guy and such enlightened havens of democracy and freedom as China, Zimbabwe, Iran, Burma, Sudan and many more escape. Is it because the US is the biggest beast.
Or is it because the US has the market and the money to make breaking stories and leaking leaks worthwhile..?
Posted: 29th, November 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
