This report was published at Economist.com at July 7th, 2011. This is a summary and the title is above.
A host of non-profit actors have entered the news business, blurring the line between journalism and activism. These are non-profit organisations that are involved in various forms of investigative journalism.As funding for such reporting by traditional media has been cut, they are filling the gap using methods based on digital technology. Some of them make government data available in order to promote openness, transparency and citizen engagement, some gather and publish information on human rights abuse and some specialise in traditional investigative journalism and are funded by philanthropy.
And then there is Wikileaks. Launched in 2006, it was intended to be ¨an uncensorable wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking nad analysis¨. In 2010 it abandoned the wiki-style approach and adopted a new, editorialising tone. Mr. Assange explained that gave it more impact than simply posted leaked material online and expected people to seek it out.
Despite Wikileaks`s difficulties, its approach is being adopted by others. Al Jazeera has set up a ¨transparency unit¨ with a Wikileaks-style anonymous drop box. The WSJ launched a drop box of its own in May, but was criticised for not offering enough protection to leakers. ¨Everyone`s looking at the idea, but if you`re going to do it you have to make it really secure¨, says the Guardian`s Alan Rusbridger.
What happens next depends in part on the fate of Mr. Assange.
The Sunlight Foundation, based in Washington, DC, also campaigns for government openness and transparency, but in a different way from Wikileaks. Its aim is to make data more easily accessible. All this provides raw material for journalists. For example, Sunlight Live, wich combines alive video stream of government proceedings on a web page with information from databases to provide context.
The line between activism and journalism has always been somewhat fuzzy, but has become even fuzzier in the digital age. The Sunlight Foundation has been closely involved in the campaign to get the US government to provide more information about its workings. There have been similar initiatives in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and several US cities and states have made information available about anything from procurement contracts to traffic accidents.
In the developing world, transparency campaigners are pushing for greater openness about aid flows and the governance of natural resources, and campaign groups are often the most credible sources of information about human rights abuses. In the past, bringing such information to attention meant working with news organisations. Yet thanks to the web, NGOs can now also publish material independently.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) now sends photographers and radio producers to producers to work alongside its researchers in the field. Amnesty International is creating a ¨news unit¨ staffed by five journalists.
¨We are beginning to realise that there is a wider range of people who are qualified, have the integrity and are competent to be part of the reporting picture, and NGOs are part of that picture¨, says Sammer Padania, who advises them on the use of tech. ¨So being able to verify the accuracy and provenance of material is vital¨. he says.
Dan Gillmor, professor of journalism at Arizona State University says, ¨in the end what matters is not whether or not particular people qualify as journalists but whether the work they produce is thorough, accurate, fair and transparency enough to qualify as journalism¨.
