Running Head: Wikileaks and the Censorship of News Media in the U.S

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RUNNING HEAD: WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S.

WikiLeaks and the Censorship of News Media in the U.S.

Author: Asa Hilmersson

Faculty Mentor: Professor Keeton

Ramapo College of New Jersey

WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 1

“Censorship in free societies is infinitely more sophisticated and thorough than in dictatorships, because ‘unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without any need for an official ban’.” – George Orwell

Introduction Throughout history, media has been censored or obscured in different ways which seem to fit the dominant ideology or ruling regime. As William Powers (1995) from The Washington Post said; the Nazis were censored, Big Brother was a censor, and nightmare regimes such as China have censors. Though we are all aware of censorship around the world and in history, little do we look to ourselves because as Powers writes, “None of that [censorship] for us. This is America” (para. 3). People in America have long been led to believe that they live in a free world where every voice is heard. It is not until someone uses the opportunities of this right that we see that this freedom of speech might only be an illusion. The emergence of WikiLeaks in 2010 and the censorship exercised against this organization by the United States’ government exemplifies the major obstacles individuals can face when seeking to expose potential wrongdoing by public officials. Through questioning of media’s power as whistleblowers it is hinted that there are institutions which may carry more weight than the truth in making decisions that affect that public interest. These institutions directly and indirectly control mainstream media sources and therefore can also decide who the public sees in a positive and negative light. This will be examined in this paper by looking at how WikiLeaks has been portrayed in American mainstream media compared to alternative media sources and what accounts for differences in coverage. This paper will also distinguish if there are any similarities between the censorship of WikiLeaks to the censorship of “the nightmare regime” China.

Background A discussion of censorship first requires a definition of the word. According to Powers (1995), the word censor originated from ancient Rome where two public officials had the responsibility to supervise the public census, behaviors, and morals. Powers wrote that it today means a government official, which can be either a civilian or military, edits or outlaws written and any other kinds of expressions (para. 8-9) . However, though some still hold strong that censorship is on a governmental or legal level, the definition of censorship seem to have loosened as Power cites the executive vice president of People of the American Way, Elliot Mincberg. Mincberg said, “censorship also occurs when ‘someone in position of power prevents’ people from ‘having access to information – music, whatever – based in part on the content of it” (para. 17 ). Mincberg’s definition of censorship opens up new possibilities; not only government officials have the opportunity to censor, but in theory anyone with some form of power can. If anyone with power over news reporting is able to censor, then we must question the growing power of major news corporations in media. Throughout the 1980s, first in the United States and then internationally, major news and other media corporations underwent a period of mergers and conglomeratization that allowed them to expand into new markets and increase revenue and profits. Robert W. McChesney (2001) referred to this process as neoliberalism and explained it in his article “Global Media, Neoliberalism and Imperialism,” as “a set of national and international policies that call for business domination of all social affairs with minimal WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 2 countervailing force” (para. 2). He also referred to its goals as the deregulation of commercial media and communication markets. In short, what is happening today is the creation of a global oligopoly where the global media market is dominated by seven multicultural corporations: Disney, AOL-Time Warner, Sony, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, and Bertelsmann (para. 4-8) . Technology made this possible, but the driving force to concentrate media ownership is profit (para. 12) . According to McChesney, the strategy is to join international companies instead of competing with them, and he notes that many of the largest media firms either have the same major shareholders, own pieces of one another, or have interlocking boards of directors meaning that directors serve on several boards (para. 23 ). McChesney (2001) continued by saying that this system not only creates oligopoly but also plutocracy, since it creates media corporate giants which have a great deal of power in effecting economic behavior as well as political, such as the drafting of laws and regulations that will benefit their bottom lines (para. 24-25) . Two large and popular media corporations that will be examined in this paper are The New York Times and The Washington Post . According to mediaowners.com (2011) these two corporations are placed among the top 20 media owners in the United States, with revenue of $2.4 billion dollars in 2009 for The New York Times, and revenue of $3.3 billion dollars in 2004 for The Washington Post . These news media also own other papers and forms of news media around the country (http://www.mediaowners.com , 2011). Returning to McChesney’s (2001) claim that most of the biggest corporations in America are connected through their board of directors, when examining the directors of The New York Times and The Washington Post on their own websites it showed that most of their members also serve on at least one other board for another corporation (http://www.nytco.com & http://www.washpostco.com , 2011). This does not need to be negative since it gives them an inside view of how other corporations operate, but it could also influence their opinions in order to favor certain things which can benefit their own interests in other corporations. Realizing that there is relationship between newspapers and the corporate world makes it easier to see the ways media can be persuaded, but it does not stop there. The connection between corporations and ways they can influence government is explained by William Domhoff (2002) in his book Who Rules America? . He said that the connections between the corporate community and the policy planning network consist of foundations, think tanks and policy-discussion organizations. These organizations are linked together by their board of directors and many of them are also on boards of other corporations. These organizations have the experts and decide who is an expert within a certain field. The government turns to these institutions for new ideas and expertise, meaning that since these people can sit on multiple corporate boards, they can have an enormous impact on the government and its decisions (p. 70-72). The boards also have the ability to influence what will be covered and emphasized since many publishers and editors share class loyalty and perspectives. Through this perspective, news corporations can use this power in a self-serving way such as cementing their political influence and supporting an ideology which will best serve their own interests without the need to use a police state, or to face resistance. Media could in theory produce material to get people to keep supporting the dominant ideology which benefits these media giants (McChesney, 2001, para. 25 ). This discussion takes us back to the word censorship. McChesney (2001) cited George Orwell, saying that “censorship in free societies is infinitely more sophisticated and thorough than in dictatorships, because ‘unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without any need for an official ban’” (para. 33). A common example of a country that exercises WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 3 censorship, and against which the United States and many other countries have expressed great criticism, is China. The article “China and the Internet,” from the journal International Debates (2010), examined the limitations and restrictions of news in China. The article said the government of the People’s Republic of China places severe restrictions on domestic and foreign news, including censoring information that is considered sensitive or offensive to the Communist Party. Furthermore, the article explained that the Chinese media, which is all government run, chooses not to cover events that they feel are a threat the social stability of the country China and the Internet, (2010, para. 1). One way China censors is through the search engine results which filter and block phrases, such as “Taiwan independence.” To do this, China has one of the most advanced filtering systems in the world, but it also has 30,000 humans employed as “cyber-police,” whose jobs are to monitor the Internet. Yet more interesting is how the article explained the practice of self- censorship exercised by many reporters, writers, authorities, and internet users since there is no clear definition of “state secrets” and people want to avoid the risk of losing their job or facing criminal liability (China and the Internet, 2010, para. 26-31 ). According to Powers (1995), this does not happen in America, but according to McChesney (2001) all of the biggest media corporations have core operations in the United States as well as control most of the American commercial cable TV channels (para. 8) . With this in mind, and Mincberg’s claim that censorship can be pursued by anyone with power, it is naïve not to imagine some form of censorship to happen anywhere, even in the United States where the First Amendment of free speech is highly valued. This discussion finally takes us to the emergence of WikiLeaks . WikiLeaks ’ members describe it as being a non-profit global media organization, the goal of which is to bring important information and news to the public. The workers are volunteers from all over the world and the site works for the defense of free speech. It works by receiving information and documents from independent sources that have the right to remain anonymous, and the organization publishes these documents on a Wikipedia format page with the exception that no one else can change the content of the page (http://213.251.145.96/About.html , 2011, para. 1). When explaining WikiLeaks in this light it sounds like any other news media organization; however, WikiLeaks has been the target of great criticism and legal challenges lately, especially from the world’s current superpower. Though WikiLeaks claims that publishing creates more transparency, which in turn creates a better society for people, the release of 250,000 US Embassy Cables (http://213.251.145.96/About.html , 2011, para. 7) was met with vociferous criticism and legal challenges by the American government or people in power. These documents in question are only a few compared to the 250,000 documents posted by the organization, showing the world’s governments and militaries abusing their power and lying to the people about it. However, as Harvard Law professor Yochai Benkler (2011) pointed out in his new journal article, “A Free Irresponsible Press: WikiLeaks and the Battle over the Soul of the Networked Fourth Estate,” the cables were at first only released to five major newspapers: The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El Pais. It was not until after these major news media had gone through and decided which cables to use that WikiLeaks limited their posts and almost solely published the selected cables online (Benkler, 2011, p. 2). The New York Times refused however to link their articles to the original documents published by WikiLeaks, something which seemed to have angered the founder Julian Assange (Keller, 2011, para. 25 ). WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 4

Instead WikiLeaks was turned into a scapegoat by the U.S. mainstream media for releasing secret information which they claimed could harm the United States. Benkler (2011) explained how major news corporations in America, which had previously supported the organization, started to withdraw. Examples of these included Amazon which cut off hosting services, the corporation EveryDNS which blocked their domain name wikileaks.org, and Apple which took away its app for WikiLeaks. Other corporations such as Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Bank of America, and Swiss Postal Bank cut off payment services to decrease the organization’s ability to raise money. There was no evidence that these acts were done because of an official government action, but it rather seemed to have been based on the fear of being associated with something that was now considered undesirable and did not support the dominant ideology in America (Benkler, 2011,p. 3), to which this paper will return.

Methodology This paper will primarily examine the way in which U.S. mainstream media has portrayed WikiLeaks compared to alternative media sources. To start with, research will be collected by looking at primary sources about WikiLeaks, which will consist of articles from mainstream U.S. media such as The New York Times and The Washington Post . The reason to examine these two newspapers in particular is because they are both huge, influential papers with a good reputation and many Americans consume them as their sole news media. The newspapers are relevant in the case of WikiLeaks because The New York Times was the only US-based media which exclusively offered the original cables from WikiLeaks, and both The New York Times and The Washington Post released secret classified documents called The Pentagon Papers in 1971. Since WikiLeaks is a new organization articles will be selected from the previous year and out of these five to ten articles that reflect their portrayal of the matter will be used. Second, complimentary material in form of primary sources will be used, which will be from alternative publications and websites including Harpers Magazine, DemocracyNow and Project Censored . Since these are non-profit based they might therefore represent a challenging view compared to the mainstream media. They are usually more critical of the dominant ideology and try to publish stories they feel have not been covered by other media. Five to ten articles from the previous year will be selected which will be compared to the mainstream articles chosen in order to detect some apparent differences in news coverage. In addition, I will examine secondary sources, including scholarly journals about WikiLeaks. I will specifically use a newly written article by Harvard professor Yochai Benkler which deals with the question whether or not WikiLeaks is being censored. This will stand as the basis for a discussion about the legal issues of the US government’s case against WikiLeaks for which it will go to trial. In this section I will look at the influence government and corporations’ interests might have on the mainstream news reporting, or if news coverage could be determined by ideological implications. In this section I will also draw parallels to the censorship in China and compare it to the censorship of WikiLeaks.

Analysis Three major themes have been selected for this paper in order to understand the huge impact the emergence of WikiLeaks has had on media as well as government and international relations. First examining how mainstream media has chosen to portray WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange compared to alternative media will give an understanding of the negative view most people have of WikiLeaks and Assange today. The mainstream media also claims that WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 5

WikiLeaks and Assange have broken several rules which demand clarification of multiple legal issues in order to reach an understanding of this case. This discussion will eventually lead into the question whether the United States is trying to practice censorship and if there are any similarities to the Chinese censorship concerning the ways it has been handled so far.

Portrayal of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange In the case of WikiLeaks , mainstream media and alternative media have taken two completely different sides on the issue. Though both cover the latest updates about Assange’s upcoming trial for rape in Sweden, the main portrayal and accusations about both the founder as well as the organization are completely different. While mainstream media is doing its best to paint a grim picture of the possibly illegal actions done by WikiLeaks, alternative media is doing its best to show the organization’s innocence and trying to illuminate the importance of the cables released to date which mainstream media has disregarded. Most compelling is how questioning Assange’s personal credibility seemed to have been the popular way to go, both for The New York Times as well as The Washington Post. The New York Times seemed to have first thrived on their success of being exclusive with the cables, but a few months after the release of the first cables it instead turned to making Assange the black sheep for handing over the documents. At the beginning of August 2010, Project Censored published an article by Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff, where they were critical of the United States’ news coverage of the WikiLeaks ’ documents. In the article they said it was safe to conclude that the corporate media in the United States was under-reporting or censoring a WikiLeaks story about U.S. Task Force 373. This story reported on an out-of-control assassination unit which had killed many hundreds civilians in Afghanistan. According to Phillips and Huff, the story was overlooked by most newspapers in the United States, and only mentioned without any specifications in The New York Times and The Washington Post together with a few other, smaller newspapers. Meanwhile the story was widely covered in Great Britain and Canada. Their final claim was that the corporate media chose to amplify their view of looking at WikiLeaks ’ action as potential treason instead of actual reporting (Phillips & Huff, 2010, para. 34 ). Treason was not the sole angle mainstream media decided to use. On January 26, 2011 The New York Times posted its own version of their encounter with WikiLeaks. In the article, Bill Keller described how in June, 2010 the editor of The Guardian , Alan Rusbridger, called him up about an offer from an organization called WikiLeaks and described it as “a secretive cadre of antisecrecy vigilantes.” Keller then wrote that WikiLeak’s leader, Julian Assange, was described to him as an “an eccentric former computer hacker of Australian birth and no fixed residence” (Keller, 2011, para. 1). Even in the first paragraph of the 17 page long article the writer established a negative tone towards WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange. This was not a single occurrence but the entire article continuously repeated of Assange’s strange behavior such as randomly skipping in the middle of the street, his terrible temper, and paranoid behavior (Keller, 2011) Besides the repetition of strange behavior, most important for The New York Times to make clear seemed be that they, Keller specifically, had not trusted Assange from the very beginning (Keller, 2011). This psychotic image of WikiLeak’s founder had previously been widely published in mainstream media. As early as August 3, 2010 The Washington Post made its position clear about WikiLeaks as journalist Marc A. Thiessen introduced his statement, “Let’s be clear: WikiLeaks is not a news organization; it’s a criminal enterprise. Its reason for WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 6 existence is to obtain classified national security information and disseminate it as widely as possible.” Thiessen also claimed that WikiLeaks ’ actions likely were “a violation of the Espionage Act, and arguably constitute material support for terrorism” (Thiessen, 2010, para . 1). This negative image of WikiLeaks was eventually backed up but also to some extent differently aimed by The New York Times , even though the newspaper had been the only American news media granted exclusive access to the original cables before the release. On October 23, 2010, three months after The New York Times published its first article based on the cables provided by WikiLeaks, the newspaper decided to publish the article “WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Trailed by Notoriety.” The article described Assange as a hunted man, who dyed his hair, slept on sofas and floors and used cash instead of credit cards which were often borrowed from friends. The article explained how not only governments denounced him but also his own friends (para. 1-7) . On top of all, The New York Times said that after speaking with dozens of former workers and supporters of Assange in Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Britain, and the United States, a picture of the founder emerged as the following: “the founder of WikiLeaks as its prime innovator and charismatic force but as someone whose growing celebrity has been matched by an increasingly dictatorial, eccentric and capricious style” (Burns & Somayia, 2010, para. 22 ). The mainstream media is in a way contradicting itself which can be seen when looking at Penenberg’s article in The Washington Post . While so much effort has gone into degrading WikiLeaks ’ and Assange’s credibility, Penenberg (2010) tried to make the information from the cables seem less important by claiming that the published material had been more of an embarrassment than destructive for the United States foreign policy interests (para. 16). Also, according to Scott Horton from Harper’s Magazine (2010), an editorial of the Washington Post suggested that no major revelations had been made but that the truth about Iraq had already been told. Horton responded to this and said that it sounded just like the Pentagon’s response and that “It’s as if Jackson Diehl had simply picked up their release, taken his blue pencil to it, and converted it into a WaPo editorial” (Horton, para. 4, 2010). Another interesting point Horton (2010) brought to attention appeared in Columbia Journalism Review where it said, that The New York Times was afraid of the material they received from a man and organization they were trying to distance themselves from, but still working with at the same time. There could be a possibility that this happened because The New York Times knew that if Assange were to be prosecuted as a journalist, it would have to stand guilty as well, no matter all the precautions they took to not step on more toes in Washington than necessary (para. 2) . Benkler (2011) found in his research that there is a deep anxiety and identity crisis within traditional media today; they are either afraid that their glory days as a key new source are over, or mad that the scoop of the year was done by an independent (p.3). Overall, the mainstream media has been trying to make Assange and WikiLeaks lose their credibility among their readers, which in turn would lose the credibility of the content of the cables. Alternative media have mainly tried to cover the information presented in the cables while at the same time trying to clear the name of WikiLeaks and Assange by pointing at some legal issues in the statements that has been printed in mainstream media.

Legal Issues Even though mainstream media has tried to make it clear that WikiLeaks and Assange should stand trial there are several complications concerning this. Some major issues are that the organization is not based in one specific country, the five major newspapers that published the stories are placed all over Europe and the United States, and the content of the cables concern WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 7 several different nations. Since so many countries are involved, there are a plethora of different laws to take into consideration. In mainstream media in the United States, the emphasis has been that WikiLeaks ’ actions were against the First Amendment and could be tried under the Espionage Act for treason. This has been reinforced in both The New York Times as well as The Washington Post , and even The Economist wrote that “BIG crimes deserve tough responses” (The right reaction; Dealing with WikiLeaks, 2010, para. 1). Meanwhile, alternative news sources say the opposite; WikiLeaks has the right under the First Amendment to act as a whistleblower and publish this material and illuminate the public. Another issue mentioned frequently in alternative news media is whether The New York Times can be prosecuted by the United States’ government, and how their actions would be different from WikiLeaks . According to Harvard Law professor Benkler (2011), it is not likely that The New York Times would be prosecuted in this matter. Benkler said that “the First Amendment does not permit prosecution of a journalist transmitting truthful information of public interest.” Benkler used the example of a previous story from 1971 about the Pentagon Papers which introduced information about government secrets concerning the Vietnam War. He said that the Pentagon Papers was a similar situation where The New York Times won the case (Benkler, 2011, p. 34- 35). Whether The Guardian and WikiLeaks are under a different jurisdiction, since they are non-citizens, is another question. Concerning this, Benkler (2011) said that the Supreme Court ruled over one hundred years ago that the freedom of speech and press was so indispensable to a free government that it would also apply abroad. He therefore said that he sees it as highly unlikely that it would be possible to prosecute The Guardian without having to prosecute The New York Times (Benkler, 2011, p. 36-37). Concerning WikiLeaks, however, more aspects have to be taken into consideration, since they are not a previously known and established news source as these two newspapers. Three months after Assange’s mental health had started to be questioned, The Washington Post took the opportunity on January 30, 2011to question Assange’s description of himself as a journalist, and therefore also his right to publish documents such as the embassy cables (Penenberg, 2011, para. 2). Keller (2011) from The New York Times claimed that he never saw Assange as a journalist but merely a source (para. 5) . Penenberg (2011) said that in the end the only definition that matters is the law. However, if WikiLeaks would be prosecuted under American law, the definition of a journalist varies between the two-thirds of the states which have shield laws for matters such as these (para. 8-17) . Benkler (2011) claimed that in order to understand the issue about the definition of a journalist, one will first have to distinguish between established media and decentralized and informal speech on the Internet . The internet has opened up opportunities for blogs and other investigative reporting which should have the right of free speech and would therefore deserve the same protection under the First Amendment as any other news source. Benkler said that there can’t be privileged speakers and press agencies, and an underclass of networked information producers whose product we only use when convenient but condemn when it becomes less pleasant ( para. 37-38) . Returning to an exact definition of a journalist, Benkler said that the Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit held that someone who seeks protection as a journalist must demonstrate that the intended use of the gathered material was to distribute it to the public, and that this was the intention during the gathering process. The means of distribution could be by newspaper, magazine, book, public or private medium, handbill, or the like. Benkler continued by saying that there are no doubts that WikiLeaks gathered information with the intent WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 8 of releasing them to the masses and they used traditional media as its primary mean to do so. Therefore, he believes they are protected under the First Amendment (Benkler, 2011, para. 39- 41 ). Thiessen (2010) from The Washington Post did however not seem to agree about these legal rights. He claimed that it was President Obama’s moral responsibility to stop Assange from doing more damage, and said that if Assange was not turned over the FBI would have the right to arrest Assange anywhere in the world even if it contradicted International Law. He said that they have the right to do this because the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum in 1989 entitled “Authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Override International Law in Extraterritorial Law Enforcement Activities”, which means that such actions would in that case not violate the Fourth Amendment (Thiessen, 2010, para. 7-8). However, how it would violate International Law did not seem as important to Thiessen. Continuing, Thiessen (2010) claimed that the United States does not only have the capability but also the authority to monitor WikiLeaks ’ and Assange’s communications and disrupt his operations. He also claimed that the President can authorize USCYBERCOM which would mean that the United States would be able to eliminate WikiLeaks ’ ability to disseminate classified information ( para. 9-10 ). He did not go into details about how this would work, but the idea that the White House could easily censor information does not seem to be too far from what is going on in China, where the government is able to control what is published on the internet and what can be found through the search engines (China and the Internet, 2010, para. 22-23 ). Dennis Bernstein (2011) from Project Censored wrote that the U.S. Justice Department is considering charging Julian Assange with espionage under the 1917 Espionage Act. If this would happen, then Assange could face execution and/or life imprisonment. Robert Meerpol, the son of the only U.S. citizen to have been executed through this act so far, believed that the only reason Assange was being charged was to show people what will happen when someone tries to mess with the United States’ government. He did not believe there was a case against Assange since the treason clause in the U.S. Constitution states that, “where someone can be convicted of treason against the United States, the only act they can do is to make war against the United States and comfort its enemies” (Bernstein, 2011, para. 1-2). Assange and WikiLeaks did not steal these cables, and they distributed the information through the corporate media. These actions do not seem to fit into the category of war or comforting enemies of the United States. There also seem to be other legal issues that have erupted around the cables. Daniel Ellsberg, who might be one of the United States’ most famous whistleblowers after releasing the Pentagon Papers, had a great deal to say about government handling of WikiLeaks. Appearing on DemocracyNow, he talked about Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked the cables to WikiLeaks. Ellsberg explained that the solitary confinement Manning has been held in for over nine months now is against the Eight Amendment. Further, he was also displeased with President Obama’s response after he had consulted the Defense Department and said that he supported the treatment of Manning. Ellsberg saw this statement as ridiculous, arguing that anyone in the power over Manning will of course give a pleasing answer (DemocracyNow, 2011).

Censorship vs. under-reporting and similarities to China Thus, can the attempts to quiet WikiLeaks be classified as censorship of a news source and were the issues censored before or were they simply underreported but now brought up to the surface? There might never be a clear answer since, as Keller (2011) from The New York WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 9

Times said, all these major news papers were granted the same information and worked together to understand them, but in the end their stories had completely different emphases (para. 23) . This opens up to a different issue; can media solely be held responsible for this or does part of the problem lie somewhere else? It is clear that media plays a key role in deciding which news will be covered and which will not. However, one possibility that should be taken into consideration is the influence from people in power. Keller (2011) explained that The New York Times sat down with representatives from the White House, the State Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the C.I.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency, the F.B.I. and the Pentagon to discuss the third range of cables they had been given. These cables were to be called the embassy cables and included information about communication between the U.S. State Department and its outposts around the globe. These cables were different from the previous material since they now dealt with higher officials than the previous ones. Keller wrote that this time The New York Times had been given the cables by The Guardian , even though WikiLeaks had made it clear that The New York Times was not to receive this information. The reason was because its relationship with Assange was not as good after painting a grim picture of him in the paper. Keller said that during the week after the meeting, The New York Times accepted concerns from the departments that had been present about the information and agreed to protect names of people who had talked to American diplomats in oppressive countries. They also promised to withhold some of the information about an intelligence-sharing program (Keller, 2011, para. 39-43 ). In other words, The New York Times agreed to censor names of people who could find themselves in danger, and chose to withhold other information which, partly based on the government’s judgment, was too dangerous to release. Without taking a stance whether this action was right or wrong, it has to be pointed out that this is a form of censorship based on Mincberg’s definition. The decision of The New York Times to omit or limit some of the information in the cables after meeting with the government is a form of censorship, similar to that practiced by the Chinese government, though not as aggressively and openly as in China. Moreover, this is not a onetime occurrence but it has happened before. Keller (2011) said that he found the Obama administration’s reaction to the cables to be professional in comparison to Bush in 2001. At that time, The New York Times released an article about the National Security Agency eavesdropping on domestic phone conversations and emails without a legal warrant. Bush tried to talk The New York Times out of publishing the story, and when they refused Bush supposedly told them that they should share the blame for the next terrorist attack (Keller, 2011, para. 49-51 ). Based on this story from The New York Times , one could conclude that there are tendencies for a government that wishes to control media. The differences between the United States and China in this aspect are the laws that protect the media to allow them to do their job of informing the public without undue government interference or control. However, no matter how well formulated these laws are some information is still censored and will never reach a broad audience. A fascinating epiphany about this erupts from Keller’s story concerning the different emails the newspapers received after the release of the WikiLeaks ’ cables. While The Guardian received emails from readers accusing it of censorship and demanding them to share all the information with the public, The New York Times received emails in the opposite direction where people were alarmed by the release of the information and asking, “Who needs this?” (Keller, 2011, para. 53 ). This could suggest that a reason why many of the WikiLeaks-stories were WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 10 downplayed and not covered as much in the United States as in other countries: the hegemony of dominant ideology, i.e. that the American public by and large agreed with the main views of the government that releasing this information was not necessary or a threat to national security. James Lull (2000) defined ideology as organized thought that is never innocent and always serves a purpose depending on its origin and the institutions it is associated with. He said that the relationships might never be clear, but this is to the people in power’s advantage since they do not want people to know where the ideas come from. In order for a dominant ideology to have power it has to be communicated, which is why mass media has such power when it comes to this (Lull, 2000, chapter 2). The critical response to WikiLeaks by the American public suggests that the consciousness of Americans is that they did not want to know the information about government misdeeds reflected in the embassy cables. This view of not wanting to know shows the kind of dominant ideology has been created in the United States. This opinion could in theory justify the choice of a paper not to cover a certain event or censor things as state secrets. The danger of this attitude toward news is that it allows news providers to claim that the public cannot handle certain truths, or understand specific issues. In this way, anything can be kept from the public, ostensibly for their own good. If people believe that they do not want to know about certain subjects, then obviously media will have to listen to this, resulting in less reporting about certain issues since they are corporations and want to sell their product. Taking this one step further, some similarities with China can be detected, such as where journalists and other individuals choose to self-censor themselves because there is no clear definition of “state secrets” (China and the Internet, 2010, para. 25 ). Not wanting to know is a form of self-censorship, though one might not go to jail for not reporting. However, the case about WikiLeaks shows another similarity that there are people trying to quiet the truth even though the publisher has the law behind them. In the case of American media the main reason for censoring or under-reporting certain issues might not be because they are afraid of legal liabilities, but because the dominant ideology has taught people that they do not want to know. The case about WikiLeaks shows this reasoning among people, and it also shows that people in power are trying to quiet these sources and journalists that go against the dominant ideology.

Conclusion Considering the original circumstances of WikiLeaks, it is a difficult case to figure out. This is clear after examining different alternative media sources which tend to showcase the opposite of the mainstream media. Mainstream media has portrayed WikiLeaks and Assange in a negative light by accusing them of breaking the First Amendment, and to be guilty of treason under the Espionage Act. Meanwhile, alternative media keeps reporting about these claims and defending WikiLeaks and Assange, distinguishing how they have not broken these laws. Unfortunately not as many will read these news sources which means that the image of WikiLeaks and Assange will probably be negative among the people of the United States. Many issues around this case have to be taken into consideration before WikiLeaks can be prosecuted without anyone breaking any other laws, either American or International. One major risk with putting WikiLeaks on trial is the potential damage to the reputation of the U.S. mainstream media, especially The New York Times, since it initially looked through the cables and published WikiLeaks’ material. On the other hand, based on Thiessen’s claim in The Washington Post to go against International law, the United States seems to have its own legal system to use for special occasions whenever seems necessary. WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 11

If Thiessen is right in his claim that the United States can go into any country and collect Assange, the most frightening aspect of this is how he seems to believe that it is the right thing to do. Thiessen states that because one American law states it can overrule another American law, America has precedence over any law in the world. The thought about America going against the rest of the world’s judgment again, a repetition of what happened when entering Iraq, is frightening. Also, is it truly beneficial for anyone breaking that many rules and going against international law for something that the media is trying to frame as an embarrassment? The only logical answer to this would be that if the United States would decide to follow up on any of these claims it would have to imply that the documents were not only an embarrassment. However, even if we would pretend that this was simply an embarrassment, it still brings up another question; how would we know that the confidential material is not already censored from media, since apparently the government has that power if they choose to use it? It is more important now than ever to become media literate but also to get into the habit of using more than one news source. In many cases the facts are out there; they are simply just not being covered enough or emphasized in the mainstream media. This in turn means that no one can be held responsible for not covering the event since that is not true. In the end, the censorship in America is not as simple as a government official selecting which parts to take out, or media selecting which parts are important. The people of the United States should also be held responsible for the censorship since they do not express a desire to know what is going on. This is why censorship in America can remain invisible and it is an ongoing indoctrination going on to keep this dominant ideology going. Now, how to turn this downward spiral around is a much more complex question.

WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 12

References (2011). “About the Company – Board of Directors”. The New York Times Company . Retrieved from: http://www.nytco.com DESCRIPTION: List of board of directors for The New York Times. (2011). “Our Company – Directors”. The Washington Post Company. Retrieved from: http://www.washpostco.com DESCRIPTION: List of board of directors for The Washington Post-

(2011) What is WikiLeaks ?. WikiLeaks About. Retrieved from http://213.251.145.96/About.html DESCRIPTION: Updates about WikiLeaks and what they are and stand for as an organization. Benkler, Yochai. (2011). A Free Irresponsible Press, forthcoming Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Retrieved from: http://www.benkler.org DESCRIPTION: Harvard law professor Yochai Bekler’s working draft about the case of WikiLeaks.

Bernstein, Dennis. (2011, January 9) US Department of Justice Threatens Julian Assange. Project Censored. Retrieved from http://www.projectcensored.org DESCRIPTION: About whether Assange can be convicted under Espionage Act or not.

Burns, J. F., & Somaiya, R. (2010, October 23). WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Trailed by Notoriety. The New York Times . Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com DESCRIPTION: An article from The New York Times which portrays WikiLeaks founder in a very negative light. China and the Internet. (2010). International Debates , 8 (4), 10-17. DESCRIPTION: This journal article is about the censorship of the Internet in China. Domhoff, G. William. (2002). Who Rules America? University of California, Santa Cruz: McGraw Hill. (69-98). DESCRIPTION: About the policy Planning Network and power in America.

Gonzalez, Juan. (2011, March 18) Daniel Ellsberg on Bradley Manning’s Solitary Confinement: “The Conditions Clearly Violate the Constitution”. DecomcracyNow . Retrieved from http://www.democracynow.org DESCRIPTION: Daniel Ellsberg describes how the confinement of Manning is against US law.

Horton, Scott. (2010, October 29). The Washington Post and WikiLeaks. Harpers Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.harpers.org DESCRIPTION: Questioning Washington Post’s arguments about WikiLeaks being guilty for people’s lives.

Keller, Bill (2011). “Dealing With Assange and the WikiLeaks Secrets.” The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com DESCRIPTION: The New York Times explanation of what happened. WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 13

Lull, James. (2000). Media, Communication, Culture: A Global Approach. Second Edition New York: Columbia University Press.

McChesney, R.W. (2001). “Global Media, Neoliberalism, and Imperialism.” Monthly Review 52 (10). DESCRIPTION: This article discusses the globalization of media and ownership.

Mondo Code LLC. (2011). “Media Owners – See who owns American media.” Media Owners . Retrieved from: http://www.mediaowners.com DESCRIPTION: About what U.S. media companies own and who owns them.

Penenberg, Adam L. (2011, January 30). Yes, he’s a journalist, too. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.lexisnexis.com DESCRIPTION: Discussion whether Assange can be considered a journalist or not.

Phillip, Peter & Huff, Mickey. (2010) WikiWoes in US Corporate Media. Project Censored. Retrived from http://www.projectcensored.org DESCRIPTION: Points to specific facts that mainstream media has chosen not to write about.

Powers, William F. (1995, June 11). War of the Words:… But Dole & Co. Are Onto Something. The New Censorship: A Manifesto. The Washington Post. Retrieved from: http://www.lexisnexis.com DESCRIPTION: This article discusses the definition and origin of censorship in media and cites several people to see how widely spread the reception of the word is.

Thiessen, Marc A. (2010, August 3). WikiLeaks must be stopped. The Washington Post . Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com DESCRIPTION: Argues that WikiLeaks is a criminal enterprise and that they are guilty for people’s lives.

Bibliography

(2011, February 10) Investigators Failing to Link Manning to Assange. DemocracyNow . Retrieved from http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/10/headlines#5 DESCRIPTION: U.S. government can’t find evidence that Assange Induced Manning to Leak the information which contradicts Defense Department’s initial portrait.

(2011, February 24). Julian Assange. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com DESCRIPTION: About Julian Assange.

(2011, March 3). Harvard Law Reviews WikiLeaks Censorship. DailyCensored . Retrieved from http://www.dailycensored.com WIKILEAKS AND THE CENSORSHIP OF NEWS MEDIA IN THE U.S. 14

DESCRIPTION: A discussion about the release of Yochai Benkler's journal article about the censorship of WikiLeaks.

Collins, Michael (2010, August 1) Julian Assange and Conspiracy Theories. ProjectCensored . Retrieved from http://projectcensored.org DESCRIPTION: Comments about Assange’s conspiracy theories from 2006.

Farhi, P. (2010, November 29). WikiLeaks spurned New York Times, but Guardian leaked State Department Cables. The Washington Post . Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com DESCRIPTION: An article from The Washington Post which talks about how WikiLeaks turned away from New York Times and instead offered cables to CNN and Wall Street which turned down the offer. Miller, Lia (2011, March 9). Julian Assange, Cat Hater. The New York Times . Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com DESCRIPTION: Apparently Assange hates cats (and this is more important to write about than what the cables said or Manning being tortured which is against American Law).

Shane, Scott; Lehren, Andrew W. (2010, November 28). Leaked Cables Offer War Look at U.S. Diplomacy. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com DESCRIPTION: Overview of what the cables contain.