Mediastan Page #7

any journalist in the United Kingdom

or in Brazil, or in Sweden or wherever.

So what we have here are the tools

for actually catching these boundaries.

If you push any organisation, they will have boundaries

- any organisation!

Yes! So what are they?

All of them...

What are they?

Is this being filmed now?

Are you filming now?

He is filming now.

Can we discuss things before we film?

Well, I'll discuss things and you'll see its all very easy.

It's not as suspicious as it sounds.

[ The Guardian is

opening its doors ]

With the Guardian you've got a paper

that's been around for nearly two hundred years.

[ ALAN RUSBRIDGER,

Editor in Chief "The Guardian" ]

It is completely solid in its traditions.

It's internationally engaged

It's at the forefront of digital innovation.

We're doing something that is almost unique in journalism

there is no one else that looks like us.

I'm very happy to talk, but...

...I just need to establish the...

...so you're talking to me for a film

which is documenting...

We're documenting how we roll out...

So this is...

So essentially you're interviewing me...

Yes. Something that surprised us

the Guardian removed, redacted

a substantial amount of US Government cables

that we had provided the Guardian.

For example in Uzbekistan, in Tashkent

the US Government cable said that

there was a connection between the Karimov family and the Mafia.

But the Guardian version of the cable which was then given to us

protects the identity of the mob-boss.

So, why did the Guardian do that?

I don't remember the document itself so I can't...

You can speak more generally than that

I would guess...

...that...

...the libel courts of London

have been used extensively by...

...people from the former Soviet Block...

...to protect their reputation.

There's quite a lot of case law built up around that.

Some of these people are very rich

and can spend millions on fighting cases.

Also, In Kazakhstan there was a cable which said that

ENI...

...an Italian energy company operating in Kazakhstan

according to many sources connected to the US Embassy was corrupt.

So this is not an allegation against an individual

rather an allegation against a company.

In Great Britain, what is the situation?

The law in Great Britain is that a company can sue.

and two or three years ago

we were sued by a very large company.

Was that Texaco?

Tesco.

And that was a classic case where the burden of proof was on us

and very rapidly we got to easily a million pounds

in total costs trying to defend that.

So yes, the law in Britain is that companies can sue.

We have a partner in Bulgaria.

They are extremely interested in a cable

that came out about Bulgaria.

detailing some of the penetration of the Bulgarian state

by Bulgarian Mafia.

I have to go at about five past...

That cable was some five thousand seven hundred words

the Guardian redacted it down to some two thousand words.

It removed all the names of alleged Mafia members

and the names of all the companies.

But one name remained, which was the name of a Russian

who was the subject of the Guardian story.

There was an unfortunate side effect of this, which was that

it made this Russian individual look like he

was the subject of the entire cable.

From memory...

...we had a kind of rubric at the beginning of the series

where we tried to explain what we were doing.

we tried to explain why we had redacted some...

and again from memory...

there are difficulties in publishing this

for among them legal considerations.

If your point is that we could have...

...been more explicit in explaining

both why we were doing things...

and the nature of the material we were cutting out

that's probably a fair point.

Were you approached by the British Government?

or US Government?

Before November the 29th?

We had...

It was decided that

the New York Times would approach

the US Government proactively.

Separately, we had two sets of communication

with the American Government

one was via the Embassy in London

who come along to see what we would tell them

which was not very much because

we already had the channel through the NY Times.

The second channel was a phone call setup by the State Department

but also involving other agencies.

Their primary aim was to discover

what documents we were going to use.

If you take away the Army entirely from a country

then wait for ten years

will there be a change in the country?

If there is no change, then you might be able to say

that the Army is actually not a powerful institution.

But we actually know that

if you take away the entire national defence force

and wait long enough

the country will be run over by a neighbour.

And we have this powerful institution

powerful enough to set agendas, to set values

to provide examples of behaviour that is punished

and behaviour that is approved.

The institution that sets all perceptions of the world

other than the ones which you immediately encounter

and perhaps those of your family and close friends.

A tremendously powerful institution

now has competition through a different mechanism.

So there must be change as a result.

To suggest that there is not change as a result would be to say

that these media institutions themselves

had no meaningful power previously.

[ Location:

Washington DC,

USA ]

Good afternoon, you probably have seen

either in person or on TV screens

the State Department briefing that we just finished.

I won't repeat everything I said at the start there but

the most significant response to what has happened is

exactly what Secretary Clinton

is doing in Astana, Kazakhstan as we speak.

She is there working constructively on co-operation and security

In a very important part of the world.

Clearly the unauthorised release of these documents

represents risk to the United States

and to others with whom we collaborate.

[ P.J. CROWLEY,

Assistant Secretary of State USA ]

This is why we condemn what WikiLeaks has done.

From Kazakhstan through Russia, into here

and through most of the geography in between.

I'm going to interview you as much as you interview me.

And we have followed the path...

...from the different countries where

the Wikileaks material has been published.

Only looking from the outside

without having any particular knowledge about it

you get the impression that all these private US institutions

have acted from being pressured in one way or another

by the US Government. In order to block flows of money...

No, no that's not true!

That is absolutely not true.

In my time in Government

at no time did Government tell

any private company what to do

there have been rumours and suggestions of that

and to be honest there has been no evidence

by those who have questioned this.

Companies protect their own reputations

it's not for the Government to tell a company

what it should and shouldn't do.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes