The Society for Professional Journalists recently deemed that “ethical journalism prevailed” in the leaking of hundreds of thousands of classified government documents by WikiLeaks.

In her post on Thursday, SPJ’s President Hagit Limor wouldn’t commit to saying that Julian Assange is not a journalist saying, “To exclude any format will define us as the fools of tomorrow.”  Furthermore, she says that the classification of WikiLeaks doesn’t matter to the people because “The world audience just wants information.”

Limor doesn’t doubt the “journalistic value” of the leaked information, as she cites some noteworthy tidbits that were made public.

Where Ms. Limor goes off the rails is when she states that, “Nothing I’ve read rises to the level of endangering lives.”  This might be true in the case of the most recent leaks, but on the whole WikiLeaks has made public Afghani informants that the U.S. Military depends on for support.  They give that support based on the condition of their anonymity.  One would presume that without our assurance of secrecy, we’d find our thirst for fresh Intel unquenched.

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July 27, 2010

Marcus Brauchli

Executive Editor

The Washington Post

1150 15th Street NW

Washington, DC 20071

Dear Mr. Brauchli:

The JournoList scandal is getting worse every day and the Washington Post is at the center of it. Blogger Ezra Klein ran the operation and at least three other staffers were members. (Blogger Greg Sargent claims he wasn’t a member after he joined the Post.) In addition, at least one member of Slate and two from Newsweek, also owned by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, were members.

Ezra Klein, JournoList founder

The almost constant revelations of political activism and journalistic conspiracy raise an enormous number of questions about Post policies, professionalism and ethics. As a conservative, and therefore a member of the movement JournoListers sought to demonize, I feel Post readers are owed full disclosure.

Any understanding of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics makes clear this list and the Post’s involvement violate a number of ethical guidelines. In fact, much of the code seems to have been ignored. Here are just a few examples from the code: (more…)

In case you’ve ever wondered why you never got the straight story on Islam directly after Sept. 11, and still haven’t, and why the media seems in the tank for jihad, here’s a clue.

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) issued this directive a couple of weeks after 9/11; for sheer propaganda, their “Diversity Guidelines” are hard to beat.  In fact, the enemy who attacked our country in an attempt to bring it down may just as well have been writing the narrative.

The “guidelines,” adopted at the Society’s national convention on October 6, 2001, urges journalists to “take steps against racial profiling in their coverage of the war on terrorism and to reaffirm their commitment to use language that is informative and not inflammatory.”

How?  Among other things: (more…)