After Edward Snowden: Journalism and the secret state
By Richard Lance Keeble
I will examine a range of questions thrown up by the Snowden
revelations - and their implications for journalism and the democratic process.
How legitimate is it for Glenn Greenwald and his close
circle of journalists (now grouped around The
Intercept) to hold a monopoly on the distribution of the Snowden
revelations. Are there not conflict of interest issues to consider when The Intercept is funded by the
billionaire owner of Paypal, Pierre Omidyar? Is it not interesting that Sibel
Edmonds, whistleblower and founder of the boilingfrogspost
website, has reported an NSA leaker revealing close ties between the NSA
and PayPal corporation?
Why is only one media outfit (the website Cryptome)
keeping a tally on the continuing publication of the Snowden files? How many
files are there, in fact? We, the public, have still no idea. We know that only
a tiny proportion has been revealed – just 2 per cent possibly. Why? What is
being held back?
Was not the dissemination of the Snowden files an extremely
‘managed operation’? Guardian editor
Alan Rusbridger said he had over
a hundred meetings with government representatives discussing publication.
Intriguingly Chris Blackhurst, of the Independent,
said he would never have published the revelations. ‘If
MI5 warns that it is not in the public interest who am I to disbelieve them?’
How original are Snowden’s revelations? Had not much of the
same data been previously revealed on Cryptome website and by James Bamford (in
say his The Shadow Factory: The Ultra
Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, New York: Doubleday,
of 2008)?
Journalism is dependent on the ability of reporters to
maintain sources’ confidentiality. Yet do not Snowden’s revelations about state
surveillance of electronic communications (emails, Google searches, Facebook
and other social media) and the breaking
of encryption protections indicate that such confidentiality is no longer
possible?
Do not the recent revelations about intelligence and police
snooping on reporters’ communications and the attacks on whistleblowers in
the UK and US (Assange, Kiriakou,
Manning (Madar 2012),[i]
Russell
Tice,
Thomas
Drake, Jeffery
Sterling,
William Binney, Mark Klein etc)
provide evidence of further threats
to journalistic activities?
Research suggests that corporate media have long been too
closely tied to dominant political, military/industrial, economic interests and
so are largely unable perform their essential democratic function and operate
‘in the public interest’. Historically many mainstream journalists have worked
as agents of the secret state (Keeble 2010) [ii]–
and recent
revelations suggests this continues to this day. Does this not make Roy
Greenslade’s comment: ‘Fleet Street is a mere plaything of the intelligence
services’ all the more relevant? (Cited in Keeble 2010).
How should journalists and citizens react? Do not schools of
journalism now have to teach that only radical journalism is relevant? Is not
all the rest mere ‘churnalism’ for the powerful interests in society? With
radical politics there has to be radical journalistic techniques: since
electronic communication is now compromised, face to face interviewing of
sources has to be the priority.
And are not now the most important media on the secret state
and its secret wars non- corporate alternatives such as tomdispatch.com,
counterpunch.org, globalresearch.ca; boilingfrogspost.com; lobster,
whowhatwhy.com, intelnews.org, wsws.org, infowars.com, coldtype.net,
anti-war.com; the writing of Pepe Escobar at Asian Times (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Others/Escobar.html)
etc? (Keeble 2015 forthcoming).
References
Keeble, Richard Lance (2010) Hacks and spooks
– close encounters of a strange kind: A critical history of the links between
mainstream journalists and the intelligence services in the UK, The
Political; Economy of Media and Power, edited by Jeffery Klaehn, New York:
Peter Lang pp 87 – 111.
Keeble, Richard Lance (2015 forthcoming) Giving Peace Journalism a Chance, in The
Routledge Companion to Community and Alternative Media, London: Routledge,
edited by Chris Atton.
Keeble, Richard Lance (2015
forthcoming) Journalists and the Secret State, in News from Somewhere: A
Reader in Communication and Challenges to Globalization, edited by Daniel
Broudy, Jeffery Klein and James Winter, Wayzgoose Press, Eugene, Oregon, USA.
Madar, Chase (2012) The Passion of Bradley
Manning, New York: Or Books.
[i]
See Madar, Chase (2012) The Passion of
Bradley Manning, New York: Or Books
[ii] See Keeble,
Richard Lance (2010) Hacks and spooks – close encounters of a strange kind: A
critical history of the links between mainstream journalists and the
intelligence services in the UK, The Political; Economy of Media and Power,
edited by Jeffery Klaehn, New York: Peter Lang pp 87 - 111
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