Wikileaks and how it is Journalism

For those of you who don't know what Wikileaks is, no it is not a part of Wikipedia, but it is a news source that usually leaks out classified documents and information.  Wikileaks is a not for profit (yet they make a profit through donations) organization who provides a secure and anonymous way to bring information and leaked documents.  Their journalists take these documents and verify them, after this they will write an editorial about the leaked information.

What separates Wikileaks from general news sources is that along with an editorial about the documents they also include a link to the original source material that way the reader can go and read the source of the story as they wish and form their own opinions based on all of the raw information available.  Since they also don't make a profit they are not motivated by profit thus creating a new model for journalism.  Also they publish all of their raw materials and leaked information on their website for all to see thus sharing information with everyone allowing for the flow of information to be relatively free, and they work off of other media outlets as well as other media outlets using wikileaks as a source under the belief that information should always be shared and people should work together to share information to as many people as possible.

One of their most famous stories is that of an American Apache helicopter attacking 15 people in Iraq including 2 Reuters reporters who unfortunately died in the attack.  In the link above, they state that the government says that wikileaks is a threat to national security, yet they broke the story with journalism in a slightly different way.  I would suggest to see the video from wikileaks because they include the full version completely unedited.  In the story on Wikileaks we see a mixture of traditional journalism with an editorial creating a certain frame of the story with the title and the editorial itself.  We also see the full unedited original video of the Apache helicopter.  This gives the reader the chance to create their own opinions but also there is a framing that happens since there is a story being written by it and since that action is occurring then a frame will always be created.

I think that Wikileaks is going in the right direction by adding to the traditional aspects of journalism and improving it.  it will be interesting to see how this type of journalism will change the way people consume information and send information.

read the story here and see for yourself