> But Wikileaks seems to be pretty even handed in their dissemination of data they get
Of course "even-handed" can be read as "non-discerning", and I think that's one of the biggest problems with the attempts to classify what Wikileaks is doing as "journalism."
The NYT, for instance has released "state secrets" (the Pentagon Papers), but they did so because it revealed policy errors in the government's prosecution of the Vietnam war, which were clearly in the interests of the U.S. public to know. They carefully judged the value of the data, and released it because they felt the value of the making the information public in that specific case out-weighed the value of keeping it secret.
Wikileaks, on the other hand, seems to have applied almost no judgement at all: they just released an enormous "bluh" of data, much of which is both problematic diplomatically (and so actually has the potential to harm U.S. interests) and yet of little obvious value to the U.S. public.
[An example being all the various cables where an ambassador says something like "The public here thinks president Y is a doodyhead, and we should be careful when talking about subjects A and B." In many cases this is essentially common wisdom, and yet seeing it explicitly stated by U.S. representatives may enrage "president X" and cause diplomatic problems for the U.S. in his country.]
Unless Wikileaks actually tries to follow journalistic practices, I don't think they can reasonably be called journalists. Journalism entails responsibility and judgement as well as freedom, and Wikileaks has shown little stomach for the former despite claiming the benefits of the latter.
Of course "even-handed" can be read as "non-discerning", and I think that's one of the biggest problems with the attempts to classify what Wikileaks is doing as "journalism."
The NYT, for instance has released "state secrets" (the Pentagon Papers), but they did so because it revealed policy errors in the government's prosecution of the Vietnam war, which were clearly in the interests of the U.S. public to know. They carefully judged the value of the data, and released it because they felt the value of the making the information public in that specific case out-weighed the value of keeping it secret.
Wikileaks, on the other hand, seems to have applied almost no judgement at all: they just released an enormous "bluh" of data, much of which is both problematic diplomatically (and so actually has the potential to harm U.S. interests) and yet of little obvious value to the U.S. public.
[An example being all the various cables where an ambassador says something like "The public here thinks president Y is a doodyhead, and we should be careful when talking about subjects A and B." In many cases this is essentially common wisdom, and yet seeing it explicitly stated by U.S. representatives may enrage "president X" and cause diplomatic problems for the U.S. in his country.]
Unless Wikileaks actually tries to follow journalistic practices, I don't think they can reasonably be called journalists. Journalism entails responsibility and judgement as well as freedom, and Wikileaks has shown little stomach for the former despite claiming the benefits of the latter.