WikiLeaks’ style of journalism has often been criticized as immoral because it publishes the (often) unredacted primary documents that are submitted by whistleblowers. As its critics charge, by publishing documents without removing sensitive information, WikiLeaks puts innocent people at risk of harm. Interestingly, even though this “risk of harm to innocents” accusation is among the most pervasive criticisms of WikiLeaks, no one, not even the U.S. government, has identified even a single instance in which a WikiLeaks’ publication has caused physical harm to anyone, let a lone innocent people.
The idea that publishing unredacted documents is unquestionably morally impermissible stems from the assumption that journalists have the professional prerogative to decide what is in the public’s interest to publish, the assumption that journalists are somehow changes as the gatekeepers of information in a (democratic) society.
Assange rejects this assumption, and throughout his interviews and writings, he explains that WikiLeaks represents a new type of journalism: “scientific journalism.” “If you publish a paper on DNA,” Assange notes, “you are required, by all the good biological journals, to submit the data that has informed your research—the idea being that people will replicate it, check it, verify it. So this is something that needs to be done for journalism as well.” He thus calls for journalism to be subjected to the same evidentiary standards as academia: “things must be precisely cited with the original source, and as much of the information as possible should be put in the public domain so that people can look at it, just like in science so that you can test to see whether the conclusion follows from the experimental data.”
According to the practice of scientific journalism, publishing primary documents provides the only legitimate basis for reporting, and by threatening to change the rules of journalism, this paradigm shift threatens traditional media and its assumption that journalists get to decide what the public knows. As philosopher and media critic John C. O’Day incisively notes, scientific journalism “considerably ups the ante in terms of professional accountability for journalists. While corporate media are content with sourcing ‘people familiar with the documents,’ for WikiLeaks obtaining and publishing those documents is not just a bonus or a lucky break, it is a requirement.”
Assange describes WikiLeaks as an intelligence agency of the people, for as a member of the Fourth Estate, he believes WikiLeaks does what the press should do: gather intelligence and report that intelligence to the public. Because a public cannot act on intelligence it does not have, journalists undermine the right of publics to decide what their governments do every time they redact information or fail to publish the documents their reporting is based on.
For all the criticism of WikiLeaks’ ostensibly unethical publishing practices, WikiLeaks has never published any forged documents and their publications have never been traced to any harm. Yet the very peopke in the world of U.S. corporate media who accuse WikiLeaks have themselves punished many false and unethical stories—some of which have caused nation-destroying wars.
In a debate with Bill Keller, the former executive editor of the New York Times, Glenn Greenwald pointed out that the Times is far more guilty of causing harm than WikiLeaks:
It wasn’t WikiLeaks that laundered false official claims about Saddam’s W.M.D.’s and alliance with Al Qaeda on its front page under the guise of “news” to help start a heinous war. It isn’t WikiLeaks that routinely gives anonymity to U.S. officials to allow them to spread leader-glorifying mythologies or quite toxic smears of government critics without any accountability. It isn’t WikiLeaks that prints incredibly incendiary accusations about American whistle-blowers without a shred of evidence. And it wasn’t WikiLeaks that allowed the American people to re-elect George Bush while knowing, but concealing, that he was eavesdropping on them in exactly the way the criminal law prohibited.
There are not many resources for studying scientific journalism as Assange conceives of it, but for those who are interested in learning more about it, please check out the following books and articles:
Secondary Sources
Anderson, Patrick D. “Review Essay of Christian Cotton and Robert Arp (editors), WikiLeaking: The Ethics of Secrecy and Exposure (Chicago: Open Court, 2019).” Logos 19.1 (2020). [Link]
Khatchadourian, Raffi. No Secrets: Julian Assange’s Mission for Total Transparency. New Yorker, 7 June 2010. http://archive.fo/nspvA
Lynch, Lisa. “‘That’s Not Leaking, It’s Pure Editorial’: Wikileaks, Scientific Journalism, and Journalistic Expertise.” Canadian Journal of Media Studies (2012): 40-69.
O’Day, John C. “Corporate Media Have Second Thoughts About Exiling Julian Assange From Journalism.” Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, June 5, 2019. [Link]
Scahill, Jeremy. “WikiLeaks vs. the CIA.” Intercepted, 19 April 2017. https://archive.md/ODOuv
Primary Sources
Assange, Julian. “Don’t Shoot Messenger for Revealing Uncomfortable Truths.” The Australian, 7 December 2010: http://archive.fo/SmXpG
Assange, Julian. “Of the People and For the People.” New Statesman, 2011: 20-22.
Assange, Julian. When Google Met WikiLeaks. New York: OR Books, 2016. [Also available in audio and transcript on wikileaks.org.]
Assange, Julian. “Why We Published What We Have on the US Elections.” Counterpunch, 8 November 2016: https://archive.fo/meWIS
Assange, Julian. “WikiLeaks has the Same Mission as The Post and The Times.” Washington Post, 11 April 2017: https://archive.fo/3ZZKu
Harrison, Sarah. “Why the World Needs WikiLeaks.” New York Times, 17 November 2016: https://archive.fo/ddQHT