History Is Happening: WikiLeaks, the Global Fourth Estate

http://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/18/113343/
Date Written:  2019-07-18
Publisher:  CounterPunch
Year Published:  2019
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23733

An article based on and in discussions with Nozomi Hayase's book 'WikiLeaks, the Global Fourth Estate: History Is Happening'.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Nozomi Hayase recounts many liberatory moments like these, damns the oppression and exploitation that inspire them, and considers the role that WikiLeaks played in them. "April 2010 was a typical spring day in San Francisco," she begins. "The world I knew was about to change. The WikiLeaks publication of the 'Collateral Murder' video became an international sensation. The cruel scenery in an Iraqi suburb viewed from a US military helicopter gunsight was laid bare for the whole world to see...."

Browsing through batches of WikiLeaks, I've come across a number of other stories I could write, many of them less obscure, but they will take more time than I can find in the foreseeable future. Before closing down the Edward Snowden archives, Glenn Greenwald said that the Intercept had stopped producing stories about them in part because they take so much time. The "Collateral Murder" video is immediately gut-wrenching, but few other documents reveal so much so readily.