Whistleblowing and radical transparency on the internet have a long history but changing contexts. While the internet allows bypassing journalists, whistleblowers themselves have become the story through smear campaigns. Maintaining anonymity while revealing information is challenging as governments and corporations work to reassert control over information flows online through market dominance and security policies.

1. @rob_jewitt
#med312
Secrets, spies and whistleblowers: the ethics of radical transparency 1

2. “The state has its eye on every citizen, but every citizen, at least every
hacker – the citizens’ self appointed avenger – can pry into the state’s
every secret”
--Umberto Eco, 2010
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5. Jana Winter
Fox News
Aurora, Colorado
James Holmes’ notebook
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6. It’s the fixed point on the ethical firmament to which all other journalism
principles are anchored, and reflects the highest aspiration of reporting –
to inform the public whatever the personal cost to the journalist
Hill and Lashmar, 2014: 132
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8. British soigneur Emma O’Reilly
Resigned in 2000
Whistleblew in 2004
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9. Dr David Kelly
May 2003
BBC: Andrew Gilligan
Today programme
‘sexed up’
‘dodgy dossier’
45 mins
Hutton Inquiry
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10. The legend of Deep Throat runs deep and, to British journalists,
it conveys a solitary absolute: confidential sources must never be
identified while they are alive
Luckhurst, The Independent, 2003
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11. Dr David Kelly
May 2003
BBC: Andrew Gilligan
Today programme
‘sexed up’
‘dodgy dossier’
45 mins
Hutton Inquiry
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14. By 1988 the book was cleared for sale when the Law Lords accepted
that overseas revelations rendered its secrets as public knowledge 14

15. By gagging its own papers the British Government was found guilty
by the European Court of Human Rights of breaching the European
Convention of Human Rights (Nov 1991)
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16. “They are only online entities. They don’t become
sources until you have met them”
Paul Lewis cited in Hill and Lashmar, 2014: 132
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17. Gomez-Mejia et al (2007) define whistleblowing as an occurrence in
which a former or current employee discloses illegal, immoral or
illegitimate practices under the control of the employer to persons or
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organisations that may be able to take corrective actions.

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22. Protecting your source
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Try to avoid electronic communication
Meet face to face
Turn off both your phones, tablets, etc, well in advance of meeting
Avoid meeting in locations with CCTV
If you do use phone or email, do not use names
If you do use mobile phones, only use PAYG mobiles for both sides of
the conversation
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• If you use email, create an anonymous generic account (eg Hotmail)

23. ‘the right of people to freely access information … helps citizens hold
their own governments accountable’
‘a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge
and ideas’ – Clinton , 2010
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24. April 2010 - Collateral Murder
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25. April 2010
Afghan War Logs
90,000 classified documents
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26. 23 October 2010
Iraq War Logs
391,832 classified documents
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27. 29 November 2010
Cablegate
251,287 classified documents
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29. • John Gilmore
• “The Net interprets
censorship as damage and
routes around it”
– TIME magazine (6 Dec 1993)
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33. Wikileaks: ‘the World’s First Stateless News Organization’
- Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University
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34. ‘the possibilities allowed [...] for dissent, openness
and diversity rather than closure, exclusivity and
ideological homogeneity’
Brian McNair, 2006: vii
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35. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then
to click online to see the original document it is based on.
That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did
the journalist report it accurately?
-- Assange, 2010
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36. Radical transparency?
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37. Credibility?
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39. The Internet and democracy:
from openness to closedness
• mass participation (see Anderson, 2009)
• end of traditional gatekeepers of information (see
Grossberg, 1995)
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40. ‘reinvigoration of democratic processes have been progressively dashed
as technological potentials have been commandeered by corporate and
governmental initiatives designed to reinstitute top-down control’
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-- Brevini & Murdock, 2013: 36

41. ‘the Web’s arrival as an everyday utility
has intersected with economic and
political shifts that have shaped its
deployment in fundamental ways.
Three are particularly relevant to the
present discussion: marketization; the
consolidation of the security state;
and the erosion of the United States’
position as the primary global
superpower’
-- Brevini and Murdock, 2013: 36-7
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43. 2001: the top 10 websites accounted for 31% of US page
views
2010: that figure had climbed to 75%
-- see Anderson and Wolff, 2010
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45. Canada: Google has 81% share of search market
Australia: 88%
UK: 90.5%
New Zealand: 92%
-- See Winseck, 2010; Freedman, 2012
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46. Top 7% of sites take 80% of all news traffic in US
Top 10 news outlets = 25+% of market share
-- Project for Excellence in Journalism,
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48. This context of persistent volatility in the international arena, continuing
emphasis on the need to defeat “terrorism” at home and abroad,
escalating civilian surveillance, entrenched official secrecy, combined
with widespread corporate disregard for the public interest, has
arguably made disclosure of governmental and business malpractice
more imperative than ever.
-- Brevini & Murdock, 2013: 38
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51. Summary
• Whistleblowing has long history: contexts
have changed
• Internet as a platform to bypass journalists
needs to be reconsidered
• Whistleblowers as the story rather than their
revelations?
• Hiding in full view?
• Smear campaigns?
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52. Sources
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Anderson, C. and Wolff, M. (2009). The Future of a Radical Price. New York: Hyperion
Anderson, C. and Wolff, M. (2010 August 17). The Web Is Dead; Long Live the Internet: Who’s to Blame: Them Wired Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/
magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/
Julian Assange (2010a) ‘Why the World Needs Wikileaks’, TED, July, http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_wikileaks.html
Julian Assange (2010b) ‘Don't Shoot the Messenger for Revealing Uncomfortable Truths’, The Australian, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/dontshoot-messenger-for-revealing-uncomfortable-truths/story-fn775xjq-1225967241332
Umberto Eco (2010) ‘Not such wicked leaks’, Presseurop, 2 December, http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/414871-not-such-wicked-leaks
Benedetta Brevini & Graham Murdock (2013) ‘Following the Money: WikiLeaks and the Political Economy of Disclosure’ in Beyond WikiLeaks: Implications for the
Future of Communications, Journalism and Society, Palgrave Macmillan
Hilary Clinton (2010) ‘Internet Freedom’, Foreign Policy, 21st January, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/21/internet_freedom?page=full
Richard V. Ericson, Patricia M. Baranek and Janet B.L. Chan (1989) Negotiating Control: A Study of News Sources, Milton Keynes: Open University Press
Mark Fishman (1980) Manufacturing the News, Austin: University of Texas Press
Freedman, D. (2012). “Web 2.0 and the death of the blockbuster economy” in Curran, J. Fenton, N. and Freedman, D. Misunderstanding The Internet, London:
Routledge
John Gilmore (1993) Time, 6th December, http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/outerspace/internet-article.html
Gomez-Mejia, L. et al (2007) ‘Developing an Effective Whistleblowing Policy’ in Managing Human Resources, 5th Edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall
Andy Greenberg (2010) ‘An Interview With WikiLeaks' Julian Assange’, Forbes, 29th October, http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/an-interviewwith-wikileaks-julian-assange/
Grossman, K. L. (1995). The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the Information Age. New York: Viking
Huxford and Moore (2011) ‘Teaching Journalism Students About Confidential Whistleblower Sources: An Analysis Of Introductory News Writing Textbooks’, Journal
Of College Teaching & Learning, Vol 8, No 10 http://cluteonline.com/journals/index.php/TLC/article/view/6107
Raffi Khatchadourian (2010) ‘No Secrets: Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency’, The New Yorker, 7th June,
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=all
Graham Meikle and Sherman Young (2012) Media Convergence: Networked Digital Media in Everyday Life, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Project for Excellence in Journalism (2011 May 9). Navigating News online, Journalism.org Retrieved from http://www.journalism.org/2011/05/09/navigating-newsonline/
Jay Rosen (2010) ‘The Afghanistan War Logs Released by Wikileaks, the World’s First Stateless News Organization’, PressThink, 26 July,
http://pressthink.org/2010/07/the-afghanistan-war-logs-released-by-wikileaks-the-worlds-first-stateless-news-organization/
Karin Wahl-Jorgensen & Joanne Hunt (2012) ‘Journalism, accountability and the possibilities for structural critique: A case study of coverage of whistleblowing’,
Journalism, vol. 13 no. 4, pp. 399-416 www.dx.doi.org/10.1177/1464884912439135
Winseck, D. (2011). ‘Media and Internet Concentration in Canada, 1984–2010’, Mediamorphis, Retrieved from http://dwmw.wordplus/2011/09/03 media-an-internet-concentration-in canada-1984-%E2%80%93–2010/
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Jeroen Elfferich, 2006, Big Brother Congestion - IMG_3280
Gaelx, 2010, Anonymous en la operación Goya
Nick Leonard, 2002, Short Track
Seth Stoll, 2009, network
Steven Depolo, 2009, Green Whistle Blowing 8-16-09 1
Kevyn Jacobs, 2011, Free Bradley Manning sticker
Ani Od Chai, 2009, IMG_0845 P
Talk Radio News Service, 2010, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton Discusses
on Internet Freedom
On Being, 2010, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks at Press Conference on
Afghanistan War Diary Leaks
JD Lasica, 2008, Jay Rosen
Ben Bryant, 2010, Julian Assange (1)
Koen Colpaert, 2011, NSA Teufelsberg (De)
Jacon Bøtter, 2004, Enjoy Capitalism
Anna Fox, 2009, Monopoly in the Park
David Maddison 2005 Big Brother WAS Watching!
A. Diez Herrero, 2007, creative commons -Franz Patzig-
All attempts made to attribute sources but if I’m missed one, get in touch please
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