You must be already nauseous (wakka!) with the barrage of wikinoise. But I have not been able to stop wondering how Mr Julian Assange will shine his light on unequivocal American logics about our state of affairs, and very likely, some candid caricatures of our leadership ranks.
Other questions promise at least a peek view into if, or how Nepal, as is widely held, serves as a strategic playing field for regional powers, in the “humint” eyes of the superpower and in the setting of her missions here. What kind of realpolitiks, during our long period of internal fluidity and mounting external concerns, emerge from the cables?
The warp speed media in this age of micro-blogging has the effect that you see or read a covert cable from Kabul and you begin to feel that you have seen one and all from every embassy in the world. Ironically, despite its name invoking speed, Wikileaks has not yet trickled out a single US diplomatic cable originating from Kathmandu. It laid the dump more than two weeks ago, an eternity in terms of new media attention span.
Meanwhile, as we all wait for the trove of Kathmandu cables to be released, observers of media are grappling with the nature of news-making in this entire episode. Is this an act of journalism, if at all? Opinions are divided in the US where freedom of the Internet is apparently extolled. Some consider him a hero of free expressions while for others he is a pariah, a new media guerilla intent on destroying America’s reputation.
Experts see this ambivalence stemming from the nature of work in a new technology environment. I mailed a question via Facebook to Charles Davis, who once taught me cyber laws. A freedom of information scholar based at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Davis believes that Wikileaks’ new and novel form of newsgathering confounds many of the established principles of American journalism, specifically, many observers are concerned by the way the site verifies information, the fact that it does no original contextual reporting on the documents itself and it does not get the sources of the documents on the record, responding to information.
Newsgathering is the key word here. Wikileaks gathered not so much the facts about facts, but the facts themselves—explosive by any measure—that, in spite of and because of all the condemnation from the US government, are newsworthy. It also brought the time-honored tradition of whistle blowing in journalism to the next level. And like many good reporters who are not necessarily good in writing the copy, it has served a primary journalistic function of collecting information of public concern, in this case a global public.
Until individual journalists are required by their competitive employers to know some programming, or they themselves find it compelling to learn some codes for career advancement, Nepali news media will not fully capitalize on the multi-media opportunity offered by the Internet.
The enormous volume and largely classified nature of electronic documents concerning none other than the world’s news leader involved in this scoop, and the manner in which they were obtained give the entire episode the aura of a new age muckraking, a hacktivisitc journalism if you like. To note another distinction, what it is publishing is not the story, but the story stuff.
Yet in the way the new media whistleblower is presiding over the exposé, it is also deciding what makes the news. In light of the codes of sensitivity and privacy as well as under official condemnation and mounting corporate pressures it is resorting to redacting and gatekeeping, just like the traditional gatekeepers often do. Thus for the seekers of nothing but the whole truth, the integrity of the story is at stake, and for many ordinary media consumers, waiting time is casualty here.
My guess is that some outsourcing, beyond the The New York Times and the The Guardian, would have been helpful. For example, why can’t Republica, or for that matter, Kantipur save us some time and earn us some professional pride by approaching Wikileaks for a zip file of those 2,600 documents on Nepal and make their own judgments over the newsworthiness of individual cables? If Assange could enroll a few traditional outlets from the West for a partnership, should he decline any such genuine invitation from others?
These questions lead me to the heart of this article. The fact of the matter is, Wikileaks, in spite of its stated practice of “scientific journalism” in the service of exposing corrupt and oppressive regimes globally, is too happy to control or moderate the leaks by itself. Science calls for rigorous authentication, but the site offers us no way, for instance, to verify what it excludes in its revelations.
Still, Nepali journalists who always seem comfortable with reactions, quotes or tripes from the same hackneyed sources for almost any and every story on public interest topics could learn a thing or two from Wikileaks. Unfortunately here, it takes an ex-prince’s hawai fire to catalyze the media to chronicle the corrupt practices of the son-in-law of a powerful minister. While our media by and large deserve appreciation for generally speaking up to power, it is only rarely that we get to see any major story substantiated with documentary evidences.
I am not suggesting we should go all out to unearth state secrets. Some secrets deserve to be kept that way. But our media could dig deeper in reporting the many important public sector issues. One such serious issue is corruption. The Transparency International ranks us as the most corrupt in South Asia. And we are getting worse. In 2009, we were placed at 143 out of 180 nations, 5 points up from a year earlier.
Irregularities and malfeasances in other areas of public interest, including business, constitutional bodies, legal and security sector, development, agriculture, health and environment, call for more rigorous reportage. Another recurring concern that has just been refreshed by the Tara Air crash last week is aviation safety.
However, any Assange-like leaks will require availability of and access to a large cache of electronic documents, which is unlikely in a notoriously secretive bureaucratic culture that still heavily relies on scrambled bundles of scrolls. Gaping paper trails, as evident in the absence of any significant or secret document at the Narayahiiti after the end of monarchy, can be another disadvantage. Even the unclassified scrolls and documents that can shine light on important topics of public interest remain largely out of the access of journalists. Public officials remain predisposed to control as much information as they can, including, recently, political humor on social networking sites, and the media seem to be satisfied merely with their briefings or spins.
This is unfortunate in a society with a democratic constitution that guarantees freedom of expression. There is a long way to go in practicing and instituting transparency as envisioned in the Right to Information Act (2007) that was finally enacted after much official reluctance. To the torment of government or corporate officials, and for the journalistic pursuit of truth, tangible leaks are, therefore, necessary.
In a verbal culture like Nepal, audio and video seem far more promising and effective forms of leaks. Take the recent cases of Shaktikhor video, Mahara wiretapping and secret conversations in Singapore between the late Girija Prasad Koirala and Pushpa Kamal Dahal. In the days ahead, we can expect more wiretapping, eves-dropping, covert filming of public official’s corrupt practices and pronouncements.
Until individual journalists are required by their competitive employers to know some programming, or they themselves find it compelling to learn some codes for career advancement, Nepali news media will not fully capitalize on the multi-media opportunity offered by the Internet. Hence, we do also have room for this type of journalism by some enterprising new media nerds, or even local hackers whose knowledge, so far used mainly to deface Websites of government and banking institutions, can be used for public good.
As long as professionals work within the constitutional bounds, the changing nature of journalism is such that it does not matter who breaks the story. As Davis suggested, whatever the journalistic credentials of Wikileaks, the First Amendment rights of Wikileaks are no less important than the rights of the The New York Times.
Writer works with Media Foundation. He is the author of the recently published book, A Compassionate Journalist (2010)
dharmaadhikari@gmail.com
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