Why did Wikileaks contact the press before its big Afghan War leak?

Short answer: It gains little traction otherwise. NYU superhuman being Jay Rosen pointed this fact out on Twitter tonight. Last year, Wikileaks guy Julian Assange put it like this: “You’d think the bigger and more important the document is, the more likely it will be reported on but that’s absolutely not true. It’s about supply and demand. Zero supply equals high demand, it has value. As soon as we release the material, the supply goes to infinity, so the perceived value goes to zero.” So in other words, if they just put it up without talking to the press first, nobody would see it. source

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Geraldo nearly killed Bizarro Hippie Express chairman Mark Williams was on Fox News’ “Geraldo at Large” talking about extremism in the movement, except in reality, he was on the air to rail on Geraldo Rivera (he even calls him out for his yellow journalism!). Mike Huckabee looks like an unfortunate bystander to this trainwreck.
Clinton on extremism Earlier this weekend, Bill Clinton said some stuff about extremism that suggested another Timothy McVeigh could come out of the bizarro hippie movement. It drew a lot of scorn from the right. This clarification during ABC’s “This Week” makes his position sound entirely reasonable.
colbert on fact-checking We love this clip for three reasons: First, it name-checks journalism smart guy Jay Rosen (one of our smart people we love reading on our iPad); second, it makes a reasonable suggestion for fact-checking Sunday shows; and third, it holds David Gregory’s feet to the fire for not doing so.

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In a word, the Times editors and Barstow know this narrative is nuts, but something stops them from saying so — despite the fact that they must have spent over $100,000 on this one story.
Our boy Jay Rosen • Regarding a recent New York Times article about the Tea Party movement which seemed to accept a seemingly wrong-on-its-face statement about our country – “a narrative of impending tyranny” – as fact. This phrase floored Rosen enough that he wrote a huge blog post about it. The point that he’s getting at, and that we completely agree with, is that the need for objectivity doesn’t mean you can’t consider or critique what’s being said. Being impartial is one thing; being oblivious, or repeating what’s being said without qualification is another altogether. We owe readers more than that. source

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25 Jul 2010 20:48