WikiLeaks: to publish or not to publish, that is the question

Director of the Centre for Advanced Journalism at the University of Melbourne, Michael Gawenda said The New York Times and The Guardian were given first access to the 250,000 cables that were leaked to WikiLeaks and that will be posted on the WikiLeaks website.

‘These papers stressed that they have checked the material they have published and have redacted names of people who might be considered in danger as a result of these leaks,’ he said.

?The trouble is that the whistleblower website does not make these sort of checks. It is not bound by the ethics of journalism. Indeed it is not engaged in journalism. This is a real problem and a big issue for the mainstream media. There will be more leaks like this and not just from WikiLeaks. That‘s the reality of the digital age in which we live. Journalists and editors have to continue to ask themselves what is the public interest we are serving by publishing material like this’ How do we apply our codes of ethics in this new digital age??

Michael Gawenda,
Director, Centre for Advanced Journalism,
University of Melbourne.
Tel: (+61 3) 8344 7640
Email: mgawenda@unimelb.edu.au