The craft of journalism
How serious is the threat posed by WikiLeaks to other media outlets and how is it shaping the media industry?
Among the latest leaked US cables show the Roman Catholic Church refused to cooperate with an Irish probe into child sex abuse.
Requests for information by the Murphy Commission are said to have “offended many in the Vatican […]because they saw them as an affront to Vatican sovereignty.”
As the website continues to release more controversial cables and fights to remain online, many now wonder if WikiLeaks is ushering in a new era of media. That might not be a journalistic entity in itself, but a kind of investigative tool used by traditional media outlets.
Never before has a private organisation provided multiple mainstream media with access to unprecedented classified government information. This new strategy marks a shift not just for WikiLeaks but for whistleblowing in general.
It hints that modern information technology is shifting news leaks away from traditional media such as newspapers.
So, is this a new way of desseminating information? How serious is the threat by WikiLeaks to other media outlets? And how is WikiLeaks shaping the media industry?
Inside Story, with presenter Dareen Abu Ghaida, discusses with Robert Fisk, the Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, Wael Abbas, a journalist and blogger, and Adam Westbrook, a multimedia journalist.
This episode of Inside Story aired from Saturday, December 11, 2010.