Sure, journalists today come in many forms, and whether inside or outside media organisations, they must be protected. But as Johan Lidberg noted in his recent article, due process matters: fact-checking, verifying and considering the motives of a source, including whether vulnerable people or democratic processes might be harmed, are crucial.
WikiLeaks’ publication of whistleblower leaks from Chelsea Manning angered many military personnel, but aligned with an ethical duty to expose US military wrongdoing during the Iraq War, including a 2007 video of a US Army Apache helicopter shooting at Iraqi civilians and Reuters journalists. By comparison, as Lidberg notes, the disclosures Julian Assange published during the 2016 US election were not in the public interest — they included the distribution of material obtained during the Russian hacking of Democratic Party emails, which drove a flood of conspiracy theories swaying the election to Donald Trump.
In 2018 I helped reveal the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It included evidence that the hacked Democratic emails enabled Cambridge Analytica, Trump’s campaign firm, to create the “Crooked Hillary” deterrence campaign used for voter suppression. To call the distribution of the 2016 election hacks “journalism” — or even bad journalism, or to excuse it as just a “mistake” — glosses over these real-world events. It confuses readers as to what Russian hackers aimed to do, the role of WikiLeaks in enabling this, and the effect this had on American voters and the subsequent rise of fascism worldwide.
I have also experienced the fallout from state-backed hacks personally. In 2022 I was assisting UK journalist Paul Mason, who was reporting on Russian disinformation during the Bucha massacre, when he was targeted by hackers backed by Russian intelligence. Overnight, we were turned into the latest circulating “deep state” conspiracy theory. In December 2023 the US and UK sanctioned these hackers for conducting a coordinated international cyber espionage attack against governments, politicians, nuclear facilities and civil society, spanning several years and aiming to undermine trust in democratic politics.
State-backed hacks can’t be seen as mere “transparency”. They are often selective, misleading and motivated by election meddling and involve intimidating and silencing critics. Russia’s hack and leak attacks don’t just target politicians; they are increasingly used to silence journalists, activists, NGOs and even scholars. They aim to create a misleading impression, not inform.
Despite this, Lidberg brushes off Julian Assange’s publication of the Russian-hacked emails as just a “mistake”. Yet I am unaware of any statements from Assange that acknowledge his having made any error in judgment. This matters, because Lidberg advocates for WikiLeaks’ anonymous and encrypted dropbox that assists whistleblowers to safely make disclosures. But given the anonymity of the process, how does he expect Assange will avoid making this “mistake” again?
The anonymous dropbox for which Lidberg advocates removes an important ability of journalists to contact their source so they can consider the origins of the information, how it was obtained, and the motivations of the person providing the leak. This is essential in knowing if a source is a genuine whistleblower or a state running an influence operation. Without it, journalistic ignorance provides deniability, which could be an incentive for state-backed hackers looking to hide behind an unwitting outlet.
Lidberg’s article argues that WikiLeaks’ anonymous process will help restore “trust” — but it will only serve to further undermine it, leaving questions hanging over the work of journalists unable to verify where documents were sourced. It endorses a “voluntary certification program”, which would mean journalists who haven’t published Russian election hacks could be certified just the same as those who have. Systems that create this kind of false equivalence will only reinforce distrust and confusion among the public at a time when they need to know what to trust.
Journalism organisations sensitively work with and vet whistleblowers — such as those at the ABC who worked with David McBride — to produce well-researched investigations that prioritise the public interest. Journalists’ ability to know their source’s identity — and protect them — is essential. This means to enable good, trustworthy journalism, we need whistleblower protections that work, not a “dropbox” platform that makes whistleblowing indistinguishable from state-sponsored hacks.
Democracy is also too important to be left to the whims of a powerful gatekeeper with a track record like that of Assange.
