The posting of 92,000 documents on WikiLeaks about the war in Afghanistan represents a triumph for what I like to call "data journalism." But it also has to be admitted that, within journalism, it has always been something of a minority sport, partially because it involved a lot of work and was anything but glamorous. In modern times, with increasing pressure on newsrooms to be more cost efficient, editors became increasingly reluctant to allow their staff to spend the hours necessary to delve through endless piles of documents.
The posting of the material on the internet is not in itself an act of journalism. It is merely the beginning of a journalistic process, requiring analysis, context and, in this particular instance, a form of necessary censorship in order to protect individuals identified in the documents.
We journalists should be delighted that WikiLeaks exists because our central task has always been one of disclosure, of revealing public interest material that others believe wish to be kept secret.
Read more at CNN.
