Japan Groping On The Subway

Wikileaks Is it true journalism?

Wikileaks. It's the word on everyone's lips in all debates and no wonder. Beyond the importance of the documents has been making public as much last week in the past, I was particularly interested in his breakthrough role as an informational phenomenon in the current media landscape.

For many, their work calls into question the work of traditional journalism. Its founder and spokesman, Julian Assange, recently stated in an interview that "given the state of helplessness of journalism, I think it offensive to call me a journalist," for what he called "abuse" of this profession. "What is abuse?", Asked the journalist. "The biggest abuse is the war told by reporters. Journalists involved in creating wars through their lack of questioning, his lack of integrity and cowardly rally to government sources. " That's nothing.

I Assange agrees in most of his statements about this profession and its miseries. Lack of questioning and integrity are very harsh accusations but not far from reality. The media and professional looking but no success, the scoop, sell more, have more influence, have more media attention ... written with the public? Not long ago, we lost sight of the reader, the listener, the viewer, and that has led us away from society and to be dispensable. And sites like Wikileaks show that technology has put us in the disparadero and that either evolve or our role in the reporting process is compromised.

However, in regard to how to work Wikileaks, no Clearly I have to be called journalism. Some claim that this is journalism without journalists, but I doubt arises about receiving hundreds of thousands of documents and post them on the network, so that the reader moonlighting as a sort of virtual rake is journalism. I'm not questioning the value of the information provided by these reports, but disagree as to how to present it as something equivalent to journalism.

If I am meeting a confidential reports and hang on my website, so anyone can access them, am I doing journalism? Obviously not. But also, I doubt arises whether it is necessarily good for all that information Raw is accessible to anyone. Why? Ignoring the idea that wars exist "legal" and war "illegal", or just and unjust, "is no less true that all wars, all cause collateral damage, bring out the worst of human beings are on the side they are and hide heinous actions of one side or the other. U.S. participation in Second World War Europe to fight Nazism is an example of "just war" and yet, a "Wikileaks" then have been able to take thousands of troops dirty laundry Yankees passing through the old continent.

So, what Wikileaks has so far? Well, actually, putting lyrics to music that we all knew, concrete figures than anyone could imagine. Or did not know that both in Iraq and Afghanistan are dying civilians or commit torture? I mean by this that I do not think that what Wikileaks is even remotely investigative journalism. Similarly, this Monday, the British newspaper "The Independent" reported that former members of Wikileaks have complained that the "obsession" Assange with the U.S. Army has not publicly disclosed other leaks related to different topics. And, who esté libre de pecado, que tire la primera piedra.