What is the long-term significance of the disclosures by WikiLeaks? And how are international journalists coping with interpreting the huge mass of once-declassified material suddenly flung into the public domain? These two articles – one from Germany and the other from France – give a European accounting of the answers.
According to the first article headlined WikiLeaks Makes Real a Global Public Sphere by Ines Kappert of Germany’s Die Tageszeitung, WikiLeaks has put more power and responsibility into the hands of readers, and in the process, has broken the ‘sovereignty’ of newspaper editorial boards to decide how to interpret the most pressing issues of the day.
For Die Tageszeitung, Ines Kappert writes in part:
WikiLeaks dares to define public openness in an unusual way and angrily straddles the often-unquestioned relationship between reader and decision-maker. The issue is: what should the public know? The leakers stand for self-empowerment by not accepting the existing division of labor between politics, journalists, and their audience: “we determine what you publish.”
Democracy only functions on the basis of transparency – yet at the same time, it requires a certain degree of secrecy. These are the tense circumstances we have entered into. It is fascinating to see how these opposing needs are being rebalanced right before the eyes of readers.
Piece by piece, national editorial boards are presenting new content from the once-secret records. Of course, journalists and online readers are following what the competition abroad reveals; the sovereignty of the national editorial departments in interpreting information is being put to the test. The public sphere is in fact becoming international.
what’s the added value of this lofty realization? Discomfort, labor, the freedom to think for yourself – and to wake up. Some say that the notion of the informed reader is dangerous populism. True. But without it there can be no democracy.
The second article by Olivier Picard of France’s Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace headlined The WikiLeaks Disclosures: A Journalist’s Ambivalence, outlines the dilemma that the leaks present for journalists, who are, if anything, more fascinated with the contents of the classified diplomatic cables than most people, but who also have a responsibility not to endanger public safety.
Do we really need to go poking around the sculleries of international relations in search of the least appetizing leftovers from its tables? After all, we all know that the world has never revolved around virtue and that the smiles of those at the top mask ulterior motives of a less-than-gracious kind. For centuries and centuries, hypocrisy has had a place in the games played by the powerful. Indeed, it’s probably a necessity, if only to avert animosities and even personal hatred among heads of state and ward off the contradictions inherent in our complex age.
However, the WikiLeaks disclosure also contributes to the dignity of our condition. They give us the chance to know! … To know what threatens us, to know what great leaders dread but dare not admit to dreading – for fear of losing a little of their luster. This isn’t in vain. It’s one element of man’s liberation from the thralls of power, an upsurge of rebellion against the alienation of conscience, an act of resistance to the myriad attempts to manipulate by those who govern.
For continuing global coverage of the WikiLeaks disclosures, READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.
Founder and Managing Editor of Worldmeets.US