Leader

NST Leader: Good leak, bad leak

NOT every publisher is a journalist. But everyone with an Internet connection thinks he can be one.

Perhaps the publishers want to be Fourth Estate martyrs, going down in the service of press freedom.

This leaves the world of journalism with what The Conversation calls "an Assange problem". Named after the co-founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, the problem arises when a publisher invokes the defence of press freedom for both his ethical and unethical publications.

The recent extradition case brought by the United States against Assange and heard by United Kingdom District Judge Vanessa Baraister in the Westminster Magistrate's Court could have helped end the problem by clearly spelling out the boundaries of press freedom.

As it turned out, the judgment, in one reading, provides more ammunition to the state to halt investigative reporting than it does to the journalist.

The cause of investigative journalism could have been better served by the courts. Assange's extradition to the US was refused on other grounds.

Journalism's Assange problem promises to be with us for a while. The US will appeal Baraister's decision for sure. If it is extradition to the US by the next tier, Assange will file his appeal to the Supreme Court, the highest court in England and Wales.

It may not end there. Assange may even take the case up to the European Court of Human Rights. Between now and then, there is a chance for a better clarity on the defence of press freedom.

Not all of WikiLeaks works were irresponsible journalism. One such Fourth Estate function of WikiLeaks is the "Collateral Murder" video showing two US Apache helicopters mercilessly gunning down a dozen Iraqi civilians in the suburb of New Baghdad on July 12, 2007.

Among the dead were two employees of Reuters, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen. The US military claimed, as it often does in such circumstances, that the victims died in a battle that took place between US forces and "insurgents".

Tell that to Reuters. Wherever the US forces go to make war, be it Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen or Vietnam, unarmed civilians are always "insurgents".

If not for the video expose by WikiLeaks, such evidence of US war crimes would have escaped the notice of the world. Reuters' request for an investigation and the video remains just that, a request.

This work of Assange must be applauded. It is publications such as this that have drawn big names in the international media, like The Guardian, The New York Times, El Pais, Der Spiegel and Le Monde to be WikiLeaks' news partners.

Yet there are occasions when Assange and ethical journalism part company. With ethical journalism gone, so were the five news partners.

Assange's mistake was to publish a "full cache of unredacted cables", as The Guardian put it some nine years ago, of WikiLeaks' complete archive of 251,000 secret US cables, potentially exposing thousands of individuals named in the documents to great risks.

In a joint statement issued then by the five newspapers, they had this to say: "We deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted state department cables, which may put sources at risk."

The media were right to so condemn WikiLeaks. To so expose the sources is antithetical to ethical journalism.

Be that as it may, the media's oversight role is a critical one. Those in power will always try to keep their misdeeds hidden. Journalism's role is to uncover them.

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