Patrice Riemens on Mon, 24 Jan 2011 04:16:05 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> The media cottage industry around Wikileaks |
Mongrel dogs fighting for a bone is the image that comes to mind when looking at the undignified spectacle of mainstream media trying to get exclusive access to the treasure trove of 'Cablegate' leaks. It all started with Nick Davies of the Guardian making it out in disgust with Julian Assange who simply couldn't 'get it': that the paper was prepared to put considerable resources and energy into the Wikileaks story ... in exchange for exclusivity. One wonders who's not 'getting it' here. Now the Dutch weekly 'Vrij Nederland' has reported on the local battle royal for being first to publish the cables concerning the Netherlands. It was waged between the NOS public broadcasting and the NRC, the self-appointed 'paper of records' teaming up with a commercial TV station (RTL News) - the NOS lost 'in a photo finish'. They had placed their faith in Wikileaks itself, while NRC and RTL closed a deal with the Norvegian daily Aftenposten, which in its turn had got the whole stack from a Wikileaks 'dissident'... How low can you go? The whole affray went of course together with a frenzy of plane trips to Rejkjavik and Oslo, days of anxious watching and waiting, wheeling and dealings in flurry of mobile phone calls, out-of-control hotel and cab bills, massive adrenaline rushes and the inordinately frequent display of what a Columbian friend of mine poetically refers to as 'putting your dick on the table". All this to be first past the post. Those who are looking for unbiased, independent, and even moderately intelligent reporting surely wish for a speedy demise of this washed-out and totally obnoxious 'old' media model, whether funded by the taxpayer or sponsored by various commercial interests which will hand us the tab any way some time or another. Myself, I cannot wait. Cheers from patrizio and Diiiinooos! (just back themselves from a Wikileaks-generated junket in Barcelona ;-) (a report in Castillian here: http://bit.ly/hGBHyM ) # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org