Grayling Blog

Will Wikileaks change the media-ecosystem?

Posted on 9.08.2010 by Bernhard Hudik

The Guardian, the New York Times and Germany’s “Der Spiegel” in July simultaneously published tens of thousands of secret military files relating to the war in Afghanistan which was collected by the whistleblowing website Wikileaks. The files provide details on failures including hundreds of civilian casualties, a special unit set up to kill or capture Taliban leaders without trial, the role of Pakistan's security service etc.

Aside from the obvious political implications, the synchronised scoop offers a variety of questions regarding the future of the media ecosystem: Was it path breaking for future cooperation and cohabitation of the so-called "old" and "new" media? Would the publication of the files by Wikileaks alone have caused comparable impact as it had through the involvement of three international news "flagships"? Would these "old-style" players have been able to research a similar extensive amount of information like the informal global network managed to obtain? Would they be able to protect whistleblowers sufficiently? Is the severe criticism by the Pentagon and U.S. administration - surprisingly also by "Social Media President" Barack Obama - justified? Or is it, quite on the contrary, a best-case for a joint effort across different media channels, formats and competencies, and across continents?

While Wikileaks’ head, Australian Julian Assange, in the TIME magazine describes himself as a "journalist, publisher and inventor", Lucy Dalglish of the "Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press" is quoted saying that what the network does "is not journalism" but "data dissemination, and that worries me". If one agrees with the latter, the latest scoop indicates how Wikileaks and thereof could overcome this „shortcoming“ in the future by joining forces with the “traditional” media. A team of experienced journalists from internationally renowned publications, who spend weeks analysing, assessing and double checking the data, is a strong point against those who say Wikileaks lacks credibility and therefore democratic and journalistic legitimacy. On the other hand, Assange and his team proved their potential by publishing a video of an American helicopter attack, killing two Reuters journalists among a group of people in Iraq, after even an influential news organisation like Reuters itself had reportedly unsuccessfully lobbied for the picture release.

The question is whether the publication of the Afghanistan-files is a straw fire or opening a new chapter in which old and new media collaborate to create a powerful, new kind of journalism.