Week Six- How much is too much?

How transparent should you be to call yourself an objective journalist? This is one of those confusing journalism questions with no real definitive answer. Its always been assumed that journalists write as truthfully and transparently as possible right? Right?? In a perfect world why yes, of course they do! But in an age of information overload, how much is too much?

The conception of Wikileaks has brought this issue to the forefront of journalism. Wikileaks is essentially a whistle-blowing site that makes classified, secret or confidential leaks globally public. Created in 2006 by Australian man Julian Assange, it correlates with his concept of radical transparency. Scholars Dreyfus and Hranfnsson (2013) explain this concept as challenging political power in an age of ICT’s and computer technology. Assange strived for an era where there are no secrets.

It wasn’t until 2010 that Wikileaks gained the infamous reputation it has now. The release of the Collateral Murder video make Wikileaks one of the most talked about topics of the year. This particular video showed U.S soldiers in Baghdad shooting civilians. This entailed children and two Reuters staff. Of course this didn’t sit well with the American Government after they had stated all those killed were anti-Iraq forces. The Pentagon tried their best to cover this up by claiming the soldiers thought the cameras carried by the media workers were guns, but after watching the video, this seems like one of the poorest excuses used ever. (It happens around the 9-11 minute mark).

Video Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0

2010 then saw a myriad of leaks published via Wikileaks including the infamous Cablegate scandal. This huge influx of information led to journalists finding themselves in the midst of a professional dilemma. Media workers were asked by Wikileaks to sort through the various confidential documents and then use their expertise to choose which stories to run and what information should be redacted. This is much like when you see a document with sections blacked out; this is the really secret and potentially dangerous information, for instance putting innocent people at risk.

So like we asked earlier, how much is too much? Journalists are sometimes labeled “the fourth estate” using their publishing power to keep the powerful in check. Many would argue that this is a hugely important role in society, me included, but we need to look at the idea of public interest and what it entails. Is it in the public interest, or merely interesting to the public? It seems ideal that whistleblowers, Wikileaks included, and journalists work to expose wrong-doing, but we need to ask ourselves what we need to know versus what we want to know. Does this concept of radical transparency make us wiser or just more informed? I would argue that for the most part, embarrassment is not reason enough to keep information such as the Collateral Murder video under wraps. But there is a fine line between transparency and national security. Is the government holding information from us or for us? It’s really something to think about.