Viral Video: Careful, This Stuff's Powerful

For the past four years, the Sunshine Press, which operates the non-profit website WikiLeaks, has caused quite a stir among governments—both U.S. and international—by posting documents and information provided or “leaked” to it by anonymous sources close to those governments. As an example of just how seriously governments take WikiLeaks, a March 2008 U.S. cyber counterintelligence report posted on the site on March 15, 2010 details U.S. Intelligence’s plans to destroy WikiLeaks, citing that there is no way to determine whether sensitive or classified information is shared that might damage national security. WikiLeaks has persevered, although not without its share of censure (it’s been blocked by the governments of China, Zimbabwe, Russia, North Korea, Vietnam and Israel, for example).

But on April 5, it posted what is probably the most sensational material in its tenure: a classified 18-minute video leaked by an anonymous Pentagon source that allegedly shows the Apache helicopter killing of two Reuters employees and their rescuers outside of Baghdad in 2007, which it posted under the URL “CollateralMurder.com.” For the past three years, Reuters had unsuccessfully attempted to obtain this video and related materials from the Pentagon through the Freedom of Information Act.

WikiLeaks sent two reporters to Baghdad to research the story and interview the families of the victims and, according to founder Julian Assange, broke the code that encrypted the video. Within 24 hours of its posting, it had garnered over 1.3 million hits on YouTube. Critics of the video, including a helicopter pilot involved in the mission, state that the video is misleading in its portrayal of a malicious act rather than the result of confusion on the ground. But the mushroom effect of this video points up the immediacy of digital media and its powerful reach.

WikiLeaks is currently in the process of soliciting funds to cover the costs of releasing another video showing civilian killings in Afghanistan. The organization has operated on a budget of about $600,000 per year, and states that it has currently raised just over half of that for 2010. It claims to have thousands of pages of documents that it cannot share with the world due to limited capacity, but its method of digital sharing appears to be a cost-effective one: even $10 can cover the cost of releasing a document to 10,000 people.

As Assange puts it, “In terms of journalism efficiency, I think we discovered a lot with a small amount of resources.”

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Taking It Right to the People

President Barack Obama has chosen the path less traveled to get out his message: bypassing the traditional guard of the often-jaded White House Press Corps to reach out directly to his desired (mostly liberal) media, including bloggers and radio hosts.

For starters, he introduced the massive stimulus spending plan by connecting White House budget director Peter Orsazg on a conference call to mostly left-leaning writers . Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel followed suit and perhaps heralded the increased importance of ethnic media in Obama’s communication plan by a direct briefing with black and Hispanic media.

Jonathan Martin of Politico reports that as revolutionary as this plan seems, it’s the fulfillment of every President’s dream to bypass the inner sanctum of seasoned beltway writers in order to present their unfiltered messages to very friendly audiences. But Martin points out that it’s not quite so easy to completely dodge the scrutiny of the White House Press Corps.

Read Martin’s article here.

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How the New Attorney General Might View FOIA

Betcha didn’t know that AG nominee Michael Mukasey used to write for United Press International. We imagine an AG who used to be a reporter wouldn’t be a bad thing these days. “Judge Mukasey is the first attorney general nominee in many years to have a firm grounding in the law of the press,” says Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “We’re optimistic that this will lead to a justice department that is more open to public scrutiny.”

Lucy should know: RCFP has just posted on its Web site an “Evaluation of the likely impact of Attorney General Nominee Michael Mukasey on Press Freedoms and the Public’s Right to Know.” The report goes into detail around Mukasey’s background and history as attorney and judge. Important issues are at stake, with FOIA reforms and reporter’s shield proposal in the balance. See the report by clicking here.

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Sunshine Week '07 Exposes the Shadows

A nationwide survey of more than 1,000 adults, commissioned by the American Society of Newspaper Editors for Sunshine Week, found that people overwhelmingly believe that their federal leaders have become sneaky by listening to telephone conversations or opening private mail without court permission. Twenty-five percent believe the federal government is either “very open” or “somewhat open,” while 69 percent said it’s either “somewhat secretive” or “very secretive.” See the poll findings at http://www.sunshineweek.org/sunshineweek/scrippspoll07 and a list of open government websites at http://www.sunshineweek.org/sunshineweek/orgs.

More than 800 organizations (nonprofit groups, news organizations, press associations, public libraries, elected officials, etc) participated in this year’s Sunshine Week (see a full list at http://www.sunshineweek.org/sunshineweek/participants07). In Illinois, more than 30 groups participated, including the State Journal Register of Springfield. The SJR website features a six-part series on FOIA - “Request Denied” - including a video on the topic (at http://www.sj-r.com/extras/specialprojects/foia).

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