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| Wikileaks |
This was the response of a "citizen journalist" to Wikileaks. He goes on to say that Julian Assange, the founder, is a "hero to many, and his courage has put him in the line of fire."
There is little that hasn't been said in the debate about Julian Assange, who leaked more than 250,000 documents of information that was stolen from a fellow computer hacker of classified U.S. documents.
So what was Assange's purpose? To really educate, inform, hold power to account on matters that elevate man? Or was it to serve his sense of entitlement and to set a dangerous precedent, already manifested in many ways that lead not to enlightenment but the reverse.
For if anyone can take the responsibility for disseminating classified documents by initially stealing them, it is a statement certainly the end justifies the means. The other dark precedent is the statement that says I need no education, training, review or control to do what I do. This is manifested in many areas outside of journalism as well, and the problems are much the same thing. The fellow who takes a weekend course on a multilevel marketing scheme of a product overnight presents himself or herself as an authority on wellness,usually denigrating the medical profession as irresponsible and not up to the task. The argument is that the medical profession makes mistakes, doesn't resolve all the problems and therefore is not up to the job.
Furthermore, If someone like Assange has the protections afforded the press, than why not give these protections to everyone else? Why not arm everyone with a notepad to report on everyone else, willy nilly, since the chances are your neighbor has secrets to hide? Should the neighbor kid with a grudge get a press pass and cover the local politician or even something that appears inane like the opening of a local supermarket? Even that supermarket can be a target for denigration by someone who has lost a job and has an ax to grind.
Institutions certainly have issues and fail in what they should do, but opening floodgates against them abruptly rather than in ways that protect people too can create worse conditions in the future as all hell breaks loose everywhere from Chicken Little. So is it reasonable that any individual action is appropriate if the end result justifies it? The author of the reference would not say it is.
Interestingly enough, as one writer observes, Nicollo Machiavelli, author of the saying, "the end justifies the means," did not mean this philosophy could be applied to any individual action no matter how unethical it may be for the purpose of acquiring a needed outcome. In fact Machiavelli maintained that the philosophy was not to be applied for personal greed nor to incite rebellion. Indeed he believed that the governments should act to minimize any harmful outcome on citizens in a government.
While governments and institutions around the world are falling or are the targets of widespread demonstrations and protests, who should do the reporting of these key events? Many times it is the armchair journalist and not the reporter on the ground who is quoted by many people. Furthermore, even the trained journalist on the ground may not get all the facts, as was demonstrated in the town of Ferguson, where a number of different stories and observations needed rethinking in a matter of days because reporters interviewed different people at different times with different perspectives. Michael Brown was shot by a policeman, and after the news broke the media's versions of what happened and how multiplied, were retracted, denied and moved on. Still the traditional press has some safeguards, as editors have the task of reviewing work and making sure it has some semblance of accuracy and takes the brunt of the blame when problems happen.
A Pakistani blogger who uses a personal name as the calling card for his website often alerts the public about the problems and pitfalls of immunization. Because of his tendency to become verbally aggressive when challenged, his identity is being withheld. When confronted with the fact he used a defrocked doctor for much of his interview about the pitfalls of immunization and very small samples not statistically significant in a large population of those said to have suffered problems from immunization, his answer was simply to say, "I'm a writer, not a journalist." This declaration presumes writers should not have the ethics of everyone else reporting the news, and thus need not abide by any ethical guidelines that counter one's own beliefs.
There are those citizen journalists, however, who are a hybrid group from the citizen community yet have an editor and others evaluating the work. This type of oversight at a citizen journal allows these citizen journalists to bring their individual take on the news, while doing original reporting with the protection afforded by editing oversight. This reduces the tendency for writers to play lightly with the facts.
While bloggers and overnight health experts, point to the arrogance of doctors, lawyers, and trained journalists, the arrogance of the citizen practitioner without any level of oversight or training can be far worse, in believing he or she can get something for nothing, a sense of entitlement that has reduced the number of traditional news outlets that can survive in a market where anyone can and does report the news, too many with little regard for evidence, facts or the recognition of individual and collective security.
There is little that hasn't been said in the debate about Julian Assange, who leaked more than 250,000 documents of information that was stolen from a fellow computer hacker of classified U.S. documents.
So what was Assange's purpose? To really educate, inform, hold power to account on matters that elevate man? Or was it to serve his sense of entitlement and to set a dangerous precedent, already manifested in many ways that lead not to enlightenment but the reverse.
For if anyone can take the responsibility for disseminating classified documents by initially stealing them, it is a statement certainly the end justifies the means. The other dark precedent is the statement that says I need no education, training, review or control to do what I do. This is manifested in many areas outside of journalism as well, and the problems are much the same thing. The fellow who takes a weekend course on a multilevel marketing scheme of a product overnight presents himself or herself as an authority on wellness,usually denigrating the medical profession as irresponsible and not up to the task. The argument is that the medical profession makes mistakes, doesn't resolve all the problems and therefore is not up to the job.
Furthermore, If someone like Assange has the protections afforded the press, than why not give these protections to everyone else? Why not arm everyone with a notepad to report on everyone else, willy nilly, since the chances are your neighbor has secrets to hide? Should the neighbor kid with a grudge get a press pass and cover the local politician or even something that appears inane like the opening of a local supermarket? Even that supermarket can be a target for denigration by someone who has lost a job and has an ax to grind.
Institutions certainly have issues and fail in what they should do, but opening floodgates against them abruptly rather than in ways that protect people too can create worse conditions in the future as all hell breaks loose everywhere from Chicken Little. So is it reasonable that any individual action is appropriate if the end result justifies it? The author of the reference would not say it is.
Interestingly enough, as one writer observes, Nicollo Machiavelli, author of the saying, "the end justifies the means," did not mean this philosophy could be applied to any individual action no matter how unethical it may be for the purpose of acquiring a needed outcome. In fact Machiavelli maintained that the philosophy was not to be applied for personal greed nor to incite rebellion. Indeed he believed that the governments should act to minimize any harmful outcome on citizens in a government.
While governments and institutions around the world are falling or are the targets of widespread demonstrations and protests, who should do the reporting of these key events? Many times it is the armchair journalist and not the reporter on the ground who is quoted by many people. Furthermore, even the trained journalist on the ground may not get all the facts, as was demonstrated in the town of Ferguson, where a number of different stories and observations needed rethinking in a matter of days because reporters interviewed different people at different times with different perspectives. Michael Brown was shot by a policeman, and after the news broke the media's versions of what happened and how multiplied, were retracted, denied and moved on. Still the traditional press has some safeguards, as editors have the task of reviewing work and making sure it has some semblance of accuracy and takes the brunt of the blame when problems happen.
A Pakistani blogger who uses a personal name as the calling card for his website often alerts the public about the problems and pitfalls of immunization. Because of his tendency to become verbally aggressive when challenged, his identity is being withheld. When confronted with the fact he used a defrocked doctor for much of his interview about the pitfalls of immunization and very small samples not statistically significant in a large population of those said to have suffered problems from immunization, his answer was simply to say, "I'm a writer, not a journalist." This declaration presumes writers should not have the ethics of everyone else reporting the news, and thus need not abide by any ethical guidelines that counter one's own beliefs.
There are those citizen journalists, however, who are a hybrid group from the citizen community yet have an editor and others evaluating the work. This type of oversight at a citizen journal allows these citizen journalists to bring their individual take on the news, while doing original reporting with the protection afforded by editing oversight. This reduces the tendency for writers to play lightly with the facts.
While bloggers and overnight health experts, point to the arrogance of doctors, lawyers, and trained journalists, the arrogance of the citizen practitioner without any level of oversight or training can be far worse, in believing he or she can get something for nothing, a sense of entitlement that has reduced the number of traditional news outlets that can survive in a market where anyone can and does report the news, too many with little regard for evidence, facts or the recognition of individual and collective security.
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