WikiLeaks reveals more than state secrets with Afghan War Diary

WikiLeaks' work with the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel also points to future of Web journalism

In case you missed it, we just had our Drudge Report Moment for this millennium, our Pentagon Papers.

Last weekend, WikiLeaks -- the controversial site where whistle-blowers can expose secrets to the world -- dropped a bombshell: some 90,000 classified documents detailing the real story of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
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Interestingly, WikiLeaks took a different tack with this leak. Instead of posting the documents right away, it sat on them for a month while reporters from three highly respected news organizations -- the New York Times, London's Guardian newspaper, and Germany's Der Spiegel -- made narrative sense out of them. Then the Wiki and the three newspapers shared their findings simultaneously with the world.
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Just as interesting to me about all this, though, is the collaboration between WikiLeaks and its "media partners." Assange knew he had a story that was bigger than he could handle, so he called in the big guns to do the type of analysis and contextual references his org is incapable of. By doing so, it also gave the disclosures more heft -- real journalists are vetting this stuff, not some shadowy organization that might just be some 14-year-olds in their parent's basement for all we know.

It's a model more blogs should adopt; the melding of sources and expertise would improve the quality of what's published on the Web immensely, as well as help keep real journalism alive (and real journalists employed -- some collegial self-interest at play here).
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http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/wikileaks-reveals-more-state-secrets-afghan-war-diary-992