Readings & Links

Who is Bradley Manning?

Bradley Manning's Army of One
Steve Fishman profiles "how a lonely, five-foot-two, gender-questioning soldier became a WikiLeaks hero, a traitor to the U.S., and one of the most unusual revolutionaries in American history." (New York Magazine, July 3, 2011)

Private Manning and the Making of WikiLeaks
Reporter Denver Nicks talks to Manning's friends and neighbors for this portrait of his Oklahoma years. He also notes that Manning's hometown of Crescent was the last place activist Karen Silkwood was seen before she died in a car crash while she was on her way to leak documents to a New York Times reporter. (This Land Press, Sept. 21, 2010)

Bradley Manning is at the Center of the WikiLeaks Controversy. But Who is He?
Reporter Ellen Nakashima explores the arc of Manning's life: "How did a young man of such promise wind up in a brig? And how was he in a position to potentially access sensitive material given what the army knew -- or should have known -- about him?" (The Washington Post, May 8, 2011)

Early Struggles of Soldier Charged in Leak Case
This story, by Ginger Thompson, describes Manning as always struggling to fit in, both in Oklahoma, where he was seen as a "geek," and Wales, where he was made fun of "for all sorts of reasons. His American accent. His love of Dr. Pepper. The amount of time he spent huddled before a computer. And then, students began to suspect he was gay." (The New York Times, Aug. 8, 2010)

Bradley Manning, Suspected Source of Wikileaks Documents, Raged on His Facebook Page
The Telegraph published this article which sheds more light on Manning's time in Wales. "He had a tough time when he came back here with his mum because moving to another country after a breakup was hard," one friend recalled. "He was quite a loner and he didn't really have a lot of friends. He had quite a bit of trouble at school and was picked on, but he didn't care." (July 30, 2010)

The Leaks

Bradley Manning is accused of three major leaks -- the "Collateral Murder" video, nearly 500,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, and 251,000 State Department cables. WikiLeaks published the war logs and State Department cables with a coalition of partner organizations, including The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel.

Say you're one of these news organization and you're given advanced and unprecedented access to hundreds of thousands of secret documents. Which stories do you run with, and how? Each of the three news organizations took different approaches, highlighted below. [Links to Der Spiegel point to its English-language coverage.]

Afghanistan War Logs

In terms of the visual representations of the Afghanistan war logs, published in July 2010, The Columbia Jourmalism Review's (CJR) Lauren Kirchner gives props to the Guardian for their extensive mining of data and interactive map of IED attacks. Lead stories include The New York Times' analysis of the extent to which Pakistan aids the insurgency, the Guardian's report on civilian deaths and the rise in attacks by the Taliban, and Der Spiegel's profile of the U.S. drone program.

For a broad overview, read C.W. Anderson's piece for the Nieman Journalism Lab on the "Five big questions the WikiLeaks story raises about the future of journalism."

Iraq War Logs

In October 2010, The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel all published visualizations looking at a day in the life of the Iraq war. The Times mapped Dec. 20, 2006, one of the war's deadlier days; the Guardian chose Oct. 17, 2006, "a typical day in one of the bloodiest years of the Iraq conflict"; and Der Spiegel mapped Nov. 23, 2006, a day that included a high number of civilian casualties.

In terms of written stories, The Times largely focused on the use of civilian contractors, civilian deaths and the treatment of detainees, among other topics; the Guardian lead with the headline "Iraq war logs: secret files show how US ignored torture"; Der Spiegel asked about WikiLeaks' impact on democracy.

Diplomatic Cables

It's worth noting that, in this round of leaks, The Times was provided cables via the Guardian and not from WikiLeaks directly.

CJR's Nov. 29 piece describes The Times as delving into "gossipy inter-embassy burns," the Guardian, in part, led with the U.S. being "catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis," and Der Spigel offered extensive coverage on German diplomats specifically.

For more CJR analysis, see their roundups from day two and day three. Also take a look at Joel Meares' study of how The Times and the Guardian differed in their coverage.

From the Editors

Each of the news organizations wrote statements about their decision to publish the leaks; those from The Times and the Guardian are below.

The New York Times on the Afghanistan war logs, the Iraq war logs and the diplomatic cables.

The Guardian's (at times much shorter) notes on the Afghanistan war logs, the Iraq war logs and the diplomatic cables.

The Times and the Guardian also held Q&As with readers. Here is CJR's overview of how the chats went for the cable publications; of interest are the more lengthy answers from The Times team and the Guardian editor-in-chief's responses.

See also Times executive editor Bill Keller's in-depth and often scathing feature on his dealings with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and Der Spiegel's excerpt from reporters Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark's book on WikiLeaks that describes "the tense negotiations with Julian Assange in the run-up to the publication of the diplomatic cables." Read FRONTLINE's interview with Assange for his account of dealing with his media partners.