WikiLeaks and Free Press, Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley, June 08, 2010 - ABC 100608

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http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2010/06/08/2920615.htm Julian Assange: WikiLeaks 08 Jun 2010, 11:00 WikiLeaks Secret US Embassy Cables: http://213.251.145.96/cablegate.html Guardian coverage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-us-embassy-cables WikiLeaks popped up on the internet three years ago as a kind of electronic "dropbox" for highly sensitive or secret information. The "pure stuff", in other words, published straight from the secret files and uploaded to the world. No filters, rewriting or spin. Created by an online network of dissidents, journalists, academics, technology experts and mathematicians from various countries, the website also uses technology that makes the original sources of the leaks untraceable. Depending on who you talk to, it's either a brilliant new form of journalism or a dangerously loose canon where all leaks are good leaks? WikiLeaks' biggest coup came in April this year when the website released graphic, classified video footage of an American helicopter gunship firing on and killing Iraqis in a Baghdad street in 2007, apparently in cold blood. The 12 dead included two civilian reporters. The de-encrypted video, which was simultaneously released on YouTube, caused an international uproar. Since then, Julian Assange has been the subject of much media attention, some of it verging on the mythical. In this discussion at the Berkeley School of Journalism, Assange joins a panel of experts from the press, government, and academia discuss their new and upcoming projects. They talk about different methods of promoting investigative journalism, ranging from building non-profit institutions to converting the country of Iceland into a "free press haven." Assange suggests there's much for the mainstream media to learn from the WikiLeaks model, including the primacy of the protection of its sources and its strategy to become "unsueable". The panel also features journalism heavyweights Gavin MacFadyen (The Bureau for Investigative Journalism, UK), Chuck Lewis (American University), Birgitta Jónsdóttir (Member of Parliament, Iceland) and Jon Weber (The Bay Citizen). Lowell Bergman moderates. Julian Assange is an Australian journalist, programmer and Internet activist, best known for his involvement with Wikileaks, a whistleblower website. He was winner of the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award for New Media. Lowell Bergman is a producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline and a Professor at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where he has taught a seminar dedicated to investigative reporting for over 10 years. He was an investigative reporter with The New York Times from 2000 until 2006. Birgitta Jonsdottir has been active in the Icelandic cultural life for more than 20 years and is considered one of the pioneers in bringing art and literature to the Internet. She is a poet and artist who has performed and lectured at festivals around the world. Birgitta's work has been published in anthologies, TV, radio, magazines, newspapers and on the net. In 2008, after the economic collapse in Iceland, she began to get involved in various grassroots movements for social change culminating in the founding of the Civic Movement, a hit-and-run political party aiiming to deliver democratic reform and more power to the people. She is now an MP for the party. Charles Lewis is a professor of journalism and champion of American journalism's commitment to the First Amendment. A national investigative journalist since 1977, Lewis is a bestselling author who has founded or co-founded four nonprofit enterprises in Washington, including the Center for Public Integrity. Under his leadership, the Center published roughly 300 investigative reports, including 14 books, from 1989 through 2004, honored more than 30 times by national journalism organizations. Gavin MacFadyen is the director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, a visiting professor at City University and research consultant to several US documentary and feature film companies. He is a former producer-director at Granada Television's World in Action, Channel 4's Dispatches, BBC documentaries and current affairs, PBS, Frontline and ABC. Jonathan Weber has worked as reporter, editor and media entrepreneur for more than 20 years, most recently as founder of New West Publishing, a Montana-based media company that has won awards for its pioneering Web-centric model for high-quality journalism. NewWest.Net combines traditional reporting and writing with various forms of participatory journalism.