There’s been a flutter of media-related discussions about the Wikileaks saga in the pas

t week. Ultimately, the fate of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange may rest in the determination of whether his site constitutes “journalism.” But what’s not being discussed as much is that Wikileaks has been modeling its habits off of tried and true methods used for decades by the more traditional media outlets. For instance, one of the myths is that WL is indiscriminately “dumping” documents onto the web with no regard for consequence, doing such things as including names of civilians, or deceased, or other information that could result in direct harm to someone. On the contrary, WL has followed the lead of most major media in redacting such information. In fact, there are reports that WL has even contacted the US government to help determine what information should be redacted. Check out this week’s Counterspin for an interview with Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com.

(Greenwald interview begins at around the 10 minute mark of the show).

Greenwald also tracks some of the major inaccuracies in the press about WikiLeaks, noting the similarities between it and the lead-up to the Iraq war. Check it out here.

More myths about the WL situation can be found online here, OpEdNews.com.

Even in death, the peoples’ historian is dangerous

by Steve Thornton

Historian and activist Howard Zinn’s death on January 27th was a huge loss, but some of the ugly reaction to his passing may be our great teacher’s final lesson.  The media criticism of Zinn right after he died exposes those who control how we view the world. Read the full story

(IndyWeek.com)

Every year since 1976, Project Censored has spotlighted the 25 most significant news stories that were largely ignored or misrepresented by the mainstream press. Now the group is expanding its mission—to promote alternative news sources. But it continues to report the biggest national and international stories that the major media ignored. Read the full story

Yahoo! News recently began a series of articles under the label of “FACT CHECK,” which presents itself as watchdog over politicians and their tricks.   Often, these articles seem much more like opinion pieces in disguise.  Take for example this article: “FACT CHECK: Health Insurer Profits Not So Fat.”  Writer Calvin Woodward is essentially a cheerleader for big insurance, while he unknowingly makes a case for universal single payer health care.  Read the full story

Reading articles like this one from AP Economics, the unemployment situation seems bad.  And it is.  But like most media, the article fails to see the disparities which complicate these grim statistics – disparities that have persisted even before this situation was labeled “recession.”  Read the full story

With just a couple weeks left to the Bush regime, largely seen as the worst in American history, the supposedly liberal New York Times ran this story today: “Expansion of Clinics Shapes Bush Legacy.”  The author, Kevin Sack, makes it seem as though Bush’s legacy can be summed up by his doubling of federal funding for health centers that serve medically underserved areas.  Read the full story