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At the centre of a media storm: The Frontline and WikiLeaks in links

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It's not every day that the world's media descends on 13 Norfolk Place.

But on Monday at noon the eyes of the British and international media were firmly fixed on our forum room as WikiLeaks editor and founder Julian Assange explained and defended the release of more than 90,000 confidential US military records on the war in Afghanistan at a swiftly arranged press conference.

You can read our account of that meeting and see the full video here.

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To say this story captured the media's imagination is an understatement and pictures of the club found their way onto the front and inside pages of The Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian

Here's just a flavour of the best coverage of this explosive story:

  • Guardian.co.uk - one of the titles that was given access to the files before publication and collaborated with WikiLeaks in interpreting them - has a wide range of text and video coverage, a comprehensive map and a snappy video of the Frontline press conference.
  • The New York Times - along with German paper Der Speigel - was also given advance access to the files and its coverage can all be found here.
  • Many titles focused on Assange's statement that "It is up to a court to decide clearly whether something is in the end a crime. That said, on the face of it, there does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material." As well as the Guardian, Telegraph.co.uk, Independent.co.uk, Channel 4, Yahoo, Mirror.co.uk and many more UK titles carried that quote.
  • Here are just a few of the newspaper front pages from around the world...
  • Front Pages around the world
  • As for broadcast spots, the stations that took a live feed of the press conference included Sky News, Al-Jazeera and BBC Radio Five Live - and BBC's Newsnight conducted its own interview with Assange (in our training room, as it happens) last night.
  • Among the media commentators Roy Greenslade concluded that the newspapers, including his, The Guardian, were right to publish the documents. Jeff Jarvis quotes Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger: “I think the Afghan leaks make the case for journalism,” Rusbridger said. “We had the people and expertise to make sense of it.” The Columbia Journalism Review had this to say about the media response of saying that there is 'nothing new' in the documents released. In his analysis, Jay Rosen writes that Wikileaks is the "world's first stateless news organisation". Alex Madrigal of TheAtlantic.com writes that "the publication of these documents will be seen as a milestone in the new news ecosystem".

See also our text and video coverage of a special public event with Assange held at the club on Tuesday.

3 Comments

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Mr Lorne Mitchell | July 29, 2010 7:13 PM

Frontline back on the Frontline! Great - hang in there!

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David Manchester | August 8, 2010 12:56 PM

I would like to see Obama focus on the organisational and reporting deficiencies highlighted throughout the War Diaries, and stop prosecuting and persecuting whistleblowers.

A good goal, to start, would be to get Obama to categorically and explicitly take murder, extraordinary rendition, and coercive interrogation off the table with respect to the US Defense Department's pursuit of Mr. Assange and other members of his team.

See http://bit.ly/WLdr3d

- Dave Manchester


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Michael S. Mitchell | August 12, 2010 12:59 AM

wikileaks and woo go together as the new event of right over might. God bless her and her friends.

Those that give their life for some thing are not always right unless it is for all of us as one.

To give your life for the love of humanities success as a whole on space ship earth is the best way to go!

Unite the world - "love all" is the only choice - love to woo - to woo us into the future of love.

If you join this club and do not cry every once in a while your not a member. what can anyone say to such integrity.

a suicide bomber must feel this same way but for a cause that is a religion. To give one's life to just helping
with medical care for families and children, is not for a power structure like a religion, but for the love of humanity no
matter what religion. Forgive me for trying to say something about such an event with such integrity as woo, i am failing
to make sense of it, but all i can do is feel love for all humanity that she had to give her self and i feel such loss for her husband to be. Few people can feel loss of this magnitude. The reason we live is so frail, information is so strong.
I feel respect great respect and what ever words can say, it not enough. All the monkeys banging type writers for ever.
respect! integrity! love.

from the dictionary:
woo |woō|
verb ( woos , wooed ) [ trans. ]
try to gain the love of (someone, typically a woman), esp. with a view to marriage : he wooed her with quotes from Shakespeare.
• seek the favor, support, or custom of : pop stars are being wooed by film companies eager to sign them up.