New York Times on Wikileaks: One question unasked and unanswered

NewsWrightsUnited -- our motley crew of playwrights, journalists, actors and those three other people we're not sure what it is they do -- are all about examining the current state of journalism.

We've done one play on the death of the (printed) Seattle Post Intelligencer, are soon to do another about the impact of social media on journalism and recently did a verbatim reading of some diplomatic cables provided to the public, through the media, by Wikileaks.

So I thought I should flag a very interesting -- and, for me anyway, kind of annoying -- article in Sunday's New York Times magazine by the paper's executive editor Bill Keller about Wikileaks and the media.

Keller, who has also written an ebook on the same subject matter, describes the NYTimes' relationship with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange largely along the lines of an exhausted parent dealing with a spoiled teenager.

To show even more respect and gratitude to Wikileaks for its part in trying to inform the public, the NYTimes article also features some nice creepy "rendered" images of Assange. Just in case you miss Keller's subtle attempt to show that Assange is, well, kind of a weirdo.

This, I guess, is how Keller and the NYTimes makes it clear to readers that they are clearly not in cahoots with Wikileaks. Keller makes his claim to independence over and over again, emphasizing that the media's job is not to collaborate with a "source" like Assange but to vet and verify his information.

Yeah, like they did with their own Pentagon-mole reporter, Judith Miller, and the NYTimes' promotion of the "big lie" of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. On that, Keller simply says, hey, we make mistakes.

To have simply published the Wikileaks documents without double-checking them for accuracy, and also making sure not to compromise any individual's safety or welfare, is absolutely legitimate. It is what the media should do.

But this sustained ad hominem (i.e., personal) attack on Julian Assange by the media organizations that he initially entrusted to help get this information out to the public is both shameful and dangerous. Dangerous to our right to know. Perhaps the NYTimes' Keller wants to deflect attention -- maybe even his own, subconsciously -- away from a serious question this whole episode raises:

Why didn't the leakers give the documents to the New York Times directly?

If the whistleblowers who gave these documents were comfortable leaking directly to mainstream media, there would be no need for Wikileaks.

The fact that it took a Wikileaks to get out into the public dialogue so many significant new insights into the war in Afghanistan, foreign policy, diplomacy and many other critical areas should cause serious soul-searching in the media.

Instead, the New York Times attacks its "source" and then goes into great detail about how important a role it played. Sheesh.

Tom