MyWeku

It would appear that most mainstream world media reporting has lost thier nerve for stories with very high or potentially damaging implications for governments. I’m enjoying watching the various Western governments squirm as they try to explain some of the embarrasing leaks soon to be released from wikileaks. As most of you would probably know by now, Wikileaks is a whistle blowing website with a reputation for publishing secret U.S files for public consumption.

The UK based newspaper Daily Mail reports that “Mr Mandela, who stepped down as President in 1999, condemned George Bush over the Iraq War, suggesting the US President had ignored the United Nations’ calls for restraint because the then Secretary-General Kofi Annan was black”. Apparently Mandela also called Tony Blair the ‘foreign minister of the United States’ for supporting Mr Bush over Iraq.

As I write governments likely to be impacted by the leaks are busy briefing thier news media about the need to publish the leaks responsibly and in the interests of thier national security. A criticism of Mandela by George Bush does not readly strike me as harmful except of cours to couse some minor diplomatic embarrasement. 

It is, therefore, disappointing that the very transparancy and respect for media that is incessantly preached to non-Western governments is being trampled on in this case. Ironically the same reasons or shall we say “excuses” we are familiar with in our not so “democratic” areas of the world are being used. I wonder who is truely learning from whom?

The very reason why new media and that includes the likes of WikiLeaks and the plethora of blogs that populate the internet are increasingly becoming more powerful is that they are less easily nullified and pressured to “tow the line”. Old media reflects the standard Government hypocrisy of lies, denial and deceit.

WikiLeaks is intermittently experiencing a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack at the moment. That’s an effort to make a website unavailable to users, normally by flooding it with requests for data. The plot thickens but the question still stands…..We need to know if George Bush really denigrated Mandela! The truth will set you free!

Submitted by Sarah Onyango

Media Student, Cape Town