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Comment by andreyf | Hacker News Reader

This was brought up on The Colbert Report's interview of Julian Assange [1]. His response was that they where provided the video under the condition that they'd try to maximize its political impact to the best of their ability. I don't think their strategy was the best way to fullfil that goal (precisely because of the blatant political slant), but that's their stated motivation.

1. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/27071...

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The thing is that it worked. I never seen any Wikileaks story get so much attention in the news or "virally" on the Internet. Here in Sweden it was a top story on all the major newspapers websites and on the evening news, but put into context. The second part with the hellfire missile, where they didn't provide much commentary, in comparison got a lot less attention. More people than usual do seem to have watched the full material and read the related reports etc. to get the full story.

I never really got upset about Wikileaks providing commentary, because I never had the illusion that they were going to be impartial. Don't be lazy, apply some critical thinking, listen to different sources. Leaks are in their nature untrustworthy. Even intelligence agencies with all their highly educated analysts get things wrong.

Finally if you stop supporting Wikileaks because you don't like that they provide commentary, editorialize, make propaganda or whatever your view are of it. I don't really think you get what their doing or what's at stake.

It's unfortunate/scary that propagandizing is more effective than the "truth".

I guess the truly unfortunate part is that people don't think critically by default. Encouraging critical thought seems like a far better/realistic goal than expecting content producers to act in a way that maximizes total "societal good", but that's [depressingly] still a completely far-fetched idea.

> Don't be lazy, apply some critical thinking, listen to different sources.

That's not a problem, I think, for the demographic here on HN (and other places). But increased coverage reaches more people; how many have been mislead because they didn't do the above?

That's what tastes bads to me.

> don't really think you get what their doing or what's at stake.

I'm even more cynical of them now. Indeed I think it's becoming clear what their intentions really are - it's to hold a firm political stance in how they present data.

Were I a whistle blower I am afraid I wouldn't consider that a legitimate or trustworthy avenue any more.

they where provided the video under the condition that they'd try to maximize its political impact to the best of their ability

With this policy in mind, is it any wonder that Army counterintelligence once wondered: "Will the Wikileaks.org Web site be used by FISS, foreign military services, or foreign terrorist groups to spread propaganda, misinformation, or disinformation or to conduct perception or influence operations to discredit the US Army?" -- http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf

This is appalling. It sounds like Wikileaks has been "positively blackmailed"[1] into accepting the video.

"We'll give you this tasty goodie to publish on your site, but you have to use it to further our political agenda".

Sounds like they couldn't resist the temptation. This is not what we want from a whistleblower protection site.

[1] is there an official word for that?

Bribed would probably be the closest “official” word.

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