WikiJournalism

     Since the middle of June, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been trying to avoid extradition to Sweden by holing up in London's Equadorian Embassy. He's afraid that if he gets sent to Sweden, he'll get handed over to the United States and possibly face the death penalty. This, to me, seems like a reasonable fear to have, because I, having grown up in the United States, could definitely see enough powerful people being angry enough to want him dead. But as far as the masses go, Assange has quite a few supporters among the common folk. Many average paper-reading, news-watching people admire him for what he started. Take a look at some of the first few pictures in the slideshow at the end of this Huffington Post article. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/18/julian-assange-talks-britain-ecuador_n_1893147.html#slide=1387072 It seems that the only people who want to arrest him are the police, following the government's orders.
     Of course, these are British citizens who admire WikiLeaks for making a hefty stack of private government information suddenly public. I can certainly see how that's an attractive concept, but I can also see how many Americans feel completely violated that someone from Australia made American information available on the global internet. Obviously, it can prove seriously dangerous to have national information available internationally. However, there's no denying how attractive a concept it is to have access to information about everything the government is working on. After all, they do use our money and resources to do it, right? But nobody has the time to do their own digging, even if all possible information was available. So, isn't that what our professional reporters are for?
     It's their job to spend their work week finding information and piecing it together into coherent representations of events while everyone else is absorbed with their own work week. They're supposed to provide us with the information we need to make the necessary choices that come with living in a democracy. They talk to the officials and politicians when we obviously can't, and they snoop around behind the scenes to find the context in which to place these conversations. Then they relate all of this to us, the general public. But recently, there's been a noticeable decline in the snooping aspect, and reporting has taken a turn towards stenography. And based on their response to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, it seems that the general public isn't quite satisfied with this.
     Newspaper companies walk a very fine line as they try to stay in business. They need to publish articles that are popular enough to sell, while also maintaining enough of an air of impartiality to keep their credibility as a reliable source of news. The reporters need to pique the interest of their readers, but also stay in the good graces of those they write about, for fear of losing favor and subsequently their jobs. When a reporter has an appointment to speak with a government official who's been in the recent news, he has to ask questions the public wants answers to. But when he reports on it, it's in his best interest to portray this official in a positive light or chances are good he probably won't be invited back for a second chat. Chances are also good that this official's colleagues, and even opponents, will note that this reporter is one to watch out for, again jeopardizing his opportunities to find something juicy to report on. In order for the news to keep coming, it has to be softened. It's understandable that a good number of people viewed WikiLeaks in a positive light, as a new way of reporting. But should a massive data dump really be considered actual reporting?
     Some critics argue that it's not responsible reporting to just dump a large quantity of private information on the internet for all to see because there's no story behind it. Or rather, there's no story that has been stitched together to make sense of all the information suddenly made available. Others argue that this form of "news sharing" is more responsible than the traditional method, also because there's no story. Because it's just the raw information that's been made available, it's up to the user to put it into context himself, cutting out the ulterior motives and story slants that may go along with the stories that are usually provided with modern news pieces. And if enough people feel that way about modern journalism, organizations like WikiLeaks may become more of the norm for news communication.
     Indeed, it seems that governments are largely trying to suppress and discourage Wikileaks and prevent it from becoming a trend. The site as a whole has been overtly banned in The People's Republic of China since 2007, and was also banned in Thailand in 2010 because of "political instabilities." The United States, too, is doing its utmost to discourage people from following in Assange's footsteps, but it seems that their efforts may be having the opposite effect. Julian Assange is garnering a great deal of sympathy from people who previously thought the governments of the world had overstepped their boundaries, and are now convinced that something should be done. I wonder how much more support he would have from U.S. citizens if he had only picked a different country to lay bare. I'm also interested to see if others try similar things in the near future. WikiLeaks may be expanded upon, or become a rallying point for those in favor of free information and government transparency. It'll be very interesting to see.


Additional Sources:
Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.