Three months ago, a reporter (ahem, “intelligence officer” - same thing) comes home tipsy from a night out with a source and fires off an email to her editor (ahem, “handler” – again, same thing) relating a stream of unverifiable, unverified rumors of the kind everybody heard from one buddy or another in the last few months about Chávez’s health. She rates her source’s reliability - on criteria known only to herself - as a ”B”.
The emails get stolen. Then they’re published…and, it just so happens, that publication – again, three months after the fact – coincides with a renewed bout of cancer.
What chances do you think there are that the lamestream media is going to be forthright and honest with their readers about the real circumstances behind the story? What are the chances they’ll refrain from headlines that imply the leak is fresh, relates to the current bout of cancer treatment and constitutes more than a rumor (ahem, “rumint”)?
Ironic that after the wikileaks scanda the information leaked is taken as “”palabra santa” without questioning its plausibility. Nicolás Maduro is Lula, really? Some people seems to be taken that way too seriously
“Lamestream media,” love it. Go Sarah!
LOL…como será la vaina que me salió el Palin que lleva cada quien por dentro!
Wikileaks does that to you, guys
The funny thing is how this is presented by other media outside the English world, like
the German ARD (public TV, thanks God quite independent, editors elected by a multi-party system):
http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/wikileaks336.html
The stress is on the business ethics of Stratfor, of its methods and the (rather poor) quality of them. The rumours themselves are of a secondary importance.
Thumbs down? Pero es así :-)
Aquí hay gente alérgica a la realidad. Fortunately, they seldom comment
evidentemente hay quien quiere leer el link pero no sabe alemán.
This may help:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tagesschau.de%2Fausland%2Fwikileaks336.html&sl=de&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
It’s not brilliant, but it helps.
“The stress is on the business ethics of Stratfor”
This is not surprising. Wikileaks has decided choose primarily PSF-type media to share its information with. If you are likely to give an anti-american, lefty slant to the news, Wikileaks will be happiest to partner with you. And next up: Wikileaks coming at cha on Putin’s VTV.
Two things about the content of the leaked email.
1. Maduro has charisma?? To me, he’s like a bowl of warm porridge.
2. What happened to the oligarcas in the A++ sector, which apparently is now reserved for boli-burgueses? Are the ‘mantuanos’ now bolis?
When I see Maduro’s puffy face and squinty eyes, the first thing I think after I think “idiot” is: big boozer. Maybe the source has that confused with charisma.
“Journalistic Malpractice”… But, I repeat myself.
Q: What is the word that means the opposite of “oxymoron”?
A: A tautology.
Seriously though, I have had personal experience with some of the private intelligence services and was sadly unimpressed. The one time I actually needed information on a developing crisis in a location where I was managing a project, I ended up supplying the service with my own on-the-ground intelligence instead of vice-verse. A couple of weeks after the crisis had eased, they produced a report in which 80% was the information I had supplied to my contact with with that service. And I didn’t even get a by-line!
Exactly right, Roy. “Selling water by the river” comes to mind.
I think Wikileaks was/is simply jealous of Stratfor.
Wikileaks and many others are wrong about Stratfor. In my opinion, Stratfor is just a company that makes money selling “selling” mostly commonly-available knowledge to business customers. -People, businesses who are interested in maybe investing in a certain country -Mexico for example.
Personally, I think Stratfor is overrated. (maybe not, if one is totally uninformed and does not have time to do some research.)Again, Stratfor is in the intelligence gathering, intelligence analysis business just to make money. Also , they are conservative, and pro-America..
Finally, there analysis is usually not so unique and substantial-not impressive. I would give Stratfor an A
for describing the situations and possible effects of things..
What I fail to recognise here is where the relevant information for the citizens is.
Assange describes himselft like some sort of white knight fighting for the right to unbiased information common citizens are entitled to. Yet this is a case in which Venezuelan citizens are denied information about their president’s health and all Wikileaks does is publishing some e-mails about a company using not very reliable sources for its own work because of the information black out from the Venezuelan State. How does this help Venezuelan citizens? What are the real intentions behind this leak?
Assange/Wikileaks looks more like a glorified PSF than like an advocate of universal and free access to information.
My feelings exactly – this is really about gratifying Assange’s ego, not our right to know.