The world’s media have been salivating over the recent steady dripping of Wikileaks, with small quantities of US diplomatic correspondence being released each day. It is an entertaining sport for most of the world, although for patriotic Americans it seems to be a horrifying attack on their country. Interestingly most of the fury seems to be targeted on the organisation which provides the leaks to the media, not on the media who publish the documents, although the difference in moral culpability seems difficult to find.
A week ago the US Department of State (motto: Diplomacy in Action) issued a press release entitled “US to Host World Press Freedom Day in 2011”. Without a hint of irony, the document says: “We are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.”
Perhaps this issue is more amusing to non-Americans than it is to patriotic Americans, but there does seem to be a gap between the rhetoric and the reality when it comes to supporting “the free flow of information in this digital age”. It is to be presumed that the board members of Wikileaks are not likely to be invited.