NickBlack.com

Last night’s Frontline event with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks was a spellbinding look into Cloud Journalism. The issue itself, whether it is ethical to publish leaks which may in the future endanger troops and civilians, is almost secondary to what it tells us about the way Journalism functions, or more accurately, what it is today. What makes the WikiLeaks story so interesting is the way in which Assange gave the Afghan Diary to journalists at major news organizations like the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel. It seems to be saying that the analytical resources and the rigour of the editing in these outfits are valuable in that they lend credibility and accessablilty to the information.

The trend toward Cloud Journalism will accelerate and as it does so it will inevitably change not only the way in which we consume and use information and news, it will change that information or news in fundamental ways. What is news if most everyday happenings are on Twitter within 5 minutes? Which makes WikiLeaks all the more interesting as a source. The only thing that is really news in this environment is information that has been hidden or suppressed. Spy vs WikiSpy.

Since the Frontline event, it has come out that Mr Assange had only read 4000 of the Log entries. Which puts a different spin on things.

Look at the Frontline event here:
And on ForaTV there’s a two way debate here and Wired Editor here:

Go to wikileaks for the entire story.

And this is the US Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Operations which Julian mentioned last night.

Like the Fax machines that finally brought down the Soviet Union, the new Information Cloud will bring this war down. The question is, where does this leave the ordinary people of Afghanistan, and those brave enough to have helped the coalition forces?