Group questions

1. Many of our mass media outlets these days report only part of the story, and that ‘part’ is often very biased. Is Wikileaks filling the void of true journalism? Is it living up to journalism’s principles, http://www.concernedjournalists.org/what-are-elements-journalism? How are Wikileaks’ actions different from those of the major media outlets? Wikileaks received the cables (from sources unknown) and published them. The media outlets received them (from Wikileaks) and published them. Is this a double standard?

Explore some of these ideas. Read the above source, research journalism ethics, read some of the links about Wikileaks on the class delicious tag cloud. Formulate an answer to these questions and maybe make some new, related questions of your own.

2. The first website addresses the question of the importance of Wikileaks in the Arab uprisings. The two middle links are about the US government’s response to the Wikileaks release. The last link is about the content of the leaked diplomatic cables.

http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/1/15/twitter-wikileaks-and-tunisia.html

http://www.arabist.net/blog/2010/12/7/an-update-on-sipa-and-cablegate.html

http://garysick.tumblr.com/post/2108412945/am-i-a-criminal
Gary Sick is a professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs

http://www.arabist.net/blog/2010/12/14/le-monde-releases-cables-on-us-egypt-relations-egyptian-mili.html

Discuss the role of Wikileaks in the Arab uprisings. Is its role exaggerated or did it truly play an instrumental role in sparking revolution?

Do the released cables accomplish the whistle-blowing goal of promoting transparency and positive change or do they serve to stoke Julian Assange’s ego?

3. The Guardian has a web-site from Jan. 28th with some really detailed info on the cables and the US reaction to them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/jan/28/wikileaks-latest-developments

After reading this article and perhaps some other background sources of your choosing, consider the two arguments:
a. Wikileaks promotes transparency and openness in the practices of governments like the United States, exposing human rights violations and promoting a more democratic process.
b. By leaking sensitive, classified documents Wikileaks threatens national security; damages diplomatic relations; and endangers sources abroad.

4. Look at the group Anonymous and its attack on HB Gary, the technology security company.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBGary
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_%28group%29#Attack_on_HBGary_Federal
• http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/11/campaigns
• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-us-bank-and-the-secret-plan-to-destroy-wikileaks-2215059.html
  

Read the above sources and any others of your choosing. Be prepared to report on Anonymous’ underlying philosophy, motivations, as well as their reasoning behind the attacks on HBGary. What do you think of Anonymous?

Wikileaks overview

· Overview/purpose (NYtimes article)

• Today's documentary about Wikileaks
  
• Timeline (Reuters)
• U.S. helicopter attack on unarmed civilians in Iraq
• Bradley Manning
• Afghanistan War Logs or War Diary (look at tagged stuff in Delicious from The Guardian, including video)
• Iraq War logs (again, look at tagged stuff from The Guardian)
• US Diplomacy cables
• Anonymous hacktivism – Operation Payback – attacks on Mastercard and Visa; look at more recent goals; look at tagged Anonymous video on Al Jazeera; consider the takedown of HBGary’s site
• Look for updates concerning Wikileaks threat to release secret documents from Bank of America.

OpenLeaks – This project, started by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, aims to promote whistleblowing just like Wikileaks, but the mechanisms for operation are quite different.

Related to OpenLeaks – Take a look at this recently published book by one-time Wikileaks insider Domscheit-Berg - Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website; It documents the internal struggles within Wikileaks. You can view partial contents on Google Books, contains good timeline for Wikileaks related events

Icelandic Modern Media Initiative - explore
Journalism principles

Arab revolution

• Timeline: BBC
• Egypt: Relive the revolution
• Good video from Al Jazeera about role of social media in uprisings
• In Search of an African Revolution - good article about African revolution with relevant quotes re: role of social networking at end; find examples of use in Tunisia, Egypt, etc. and also how major media outlets covered that

Welcome to Spring 2011

Glad to have you all with us this term! For the first class, familiarize yourself with the class website and, also, set up your own blog at blogger.com.

Once you've set up your blog, email me (cwatkins@clatsopcc.edu) the URL for your blog. I'll add it to the class website so that it shows up with the rest.