Wikileaks was awarded a Walkley Award for its "outstanding contribution to journalism." When presenting the award to WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, the Walkley Trustees said, "WikiLeaks applied new technology to penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup. Its revelations, from the way the war on terror was being waged, to diplomatic bastardry, high-level horse-trading and the interference in the domestic affairs of nations, have had an undeniable impact."
Assange claims that Australian journalists are strong and fight back with the truth. While he did make many significant documents public, he also created chaos.
The WikiLeaks website claims its purpose is "to bring important news and information to the public. One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth." While bringing the truth is important to journalism, there are better ways to make the truth available. Journalists are respected. If leaking documents and private files means exposing the truth, then the means of accessing the information is much like stealing....and that is not respectable. The ends do not justify the means.
Personally, I have a low opinion of Wikileaks. What is your opinion?
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