Me at Human Events: Murdoch Versus WikiLeaks
I haven’t written much about the growing News of the World scandal, mostly because it’s still a very new story and there is no way for anyone to know how it will play out based on how it’s played out thus far. I don’t doubt that people will go to jail; it’s obvious that quite a few laws have been broken. What’s much less clear is whether the left will successfully use the scandal to damage Rupert Murdoch’s American news outlets, the Wall Street Journal and Fox News.
However, I did write a column for Human Events — my first for that legendary conservative publication — on what I see as the rank hypocrisy from the left and the real differences between the News of the World story and the WikiLeaks thefts.
The secrets uncovered by the investigators hired by News of the World, though certainly embarrassing and personally sensitive, were fairly mundane. Perhaps the most shocking revelation is that the snoops listened in as concerned family members left messages on the answering machine of a missing 13-year-old girl and erased some of them so that they could get more. While we all recoil from the petty evil that would drive someone to do such a thing, the information they got didn’t put lives at risk.
The WikiLeaks documents, according to the New York Times, gave out identifying information about “dozens” of informants and others who were cooperating with our soldiers against the Taliban. Indeed, once the Taliban heard of the leaks, it pored over them in the hope of finding enough information to kill those named in them, or any members of their families they could find. As the Taliban spokesman said, “We know how to punish them.” We do not know how many people are dead right now because Bill Keller and his newspaper broadcast the material stolen by Julian Assange’s supplier, Bradley Manning, but we can reasonably estimate the number was more than zero.
Ann Coulter hit the subject today in her column as well. You should probably read hers first, as it takes a different angle from mine, though we reach the same end-point.
Other Posts of Interest:
- Holding Out Against the Darkness
- “Trust Me”, Says Obama. “Okey Dokey”, Says the MSM.
- Pray that You Never Get Michelle Malkin’s Undivided Journalistic Attention.
Category: Oh, THAT liberal media.
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