Wikileaks: A sign of things to come?

In early July, The Guardian received a huge excel document with over 92,201 rows of data, it took them almost a month to separate the story from the stats. What was revealed was a story of civilian killings by coalition forces, increasing attacks by Taliban forces and questions over Pakistan and Irans involvement with the insurgency.

Once the Afghan War Logs were published on 25th July, they became the biggest story in Wikileaks history. A site with a reputation for publishing classified documents, wikileaks has most recently been the source of the classified Baghdad airstrike video and publishing all the pager messages sent on 9/11. But is this website acting in our interests, a poster child of Internet journalism? Or rather is it a website simply leaking confidential information for publicity and with little consideration of the human consequences?

The Internet has changed many things for better or worse in recent years. The rise of Internet journalism (bloggers) for instance, has started a new wave of investigative political journalism. However many argue that this new journalism fails to follow the established rules of traditional journalism; no story is to personal, no secret (no matter how damaging) is too classified to reveal.

Wikileaks is believed by some to be the pinnacle of this new paradigm, a website which, it is argued, breaks potentially damaging secrets for the sake of it. Many times it is argued that there is no real story in what is being published, the story IS that secret documents have been published.

This is the argument that the American administration has taken with the recent leak. President Obama has claimed that these leaks shine little light on the events in Afghanistan beyond what was already known, and in fact put soldiers at risk in the process. For many governments and older news agencies, the actions of websites such as Wikileaks are "irresponsible" and damaging to politics.

However for the younger generation of journalists, Wikileaks is simply a continuation of the free press meeting the free internet. Take a look at Facebook for instance, a website where millions of people freely post highly private information on themselves for the world to see. For the older generations, information has always been private, the idea of open information is something that should be strictly controlled.

Had a more traditional news source been the origin of the leak rather than Wikileaks, I believe the resulting fallout would have been far different. The raw data would have been hidden from the public, whilst a series of stories would have been drip-fed into the mainstream press in order to maximise profits. In this new system however, the data was
published for the world to see, and it was left to the news organisations to find the story.

Right or wrong, the Afghan War Logs have shone a light onto the changing world of politics and political journalism. A field undergoing a fundamental shift from private to public, driven by a new generation of young news sources such as Wikileaks.

The Coalition: 3 Months in Review

Only a few years ago the notion of the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives working together would have seemed unthinkable. How times have changed.

With no one party winning a majority in the elections, the UK embarked on a journey into the unknown. Would the coalition strengthen or split the country? And most importantly, what did this development mean for our student population? Now more than three months in, the answer is far from clear-cut. Sceptics are shocked by the governments perseverance whilst proponents disappointed at their lack of progress.

In May a surreal event occurred when David Cameron and Nick Clegg gathered the nations media in the garden of Number 10, suddenly bitter months of campaigning appeared to have been a mere illusion to hide their friendship. Issues that had divided their election campaigns became the issues upon which the coalition formed, reducing the deficit, electoral reform and working the country out of recession.

The coalition started well for the Lib Dems holding their own with 5 seats in cabinet. But three months on and the Liberal Democrats face a shocking loss of credibility, with public support down to 16%, and many claiming the Lib Dems have abandoned their principles. Much of this can be placed to the ideological mismatch of the Lib-Con coalition. The emergency budget of June 2nd being a great example of this, an all-blue budget of austerity measures, that left Nick Clegg on the defensive as to his parties role in its decisions.

And as for the Lib Dems electoral reform, one of the key issues throughout the election and upon which the coalition was formed. Recent opinion polls popular support is waning and only with Labours help will the Lib Dems have any hope of passing a reform.

The Conservatives have had a far better time at achieving their goals, the coalition being Liberal in name rather than actions. But whilst David Cameron may be content with his governments actions so far, it is apparent that the honeymoon phase wont last forever. Once the budget cuts start to come into play and the country enters the hardship needed to pay off the deficit, then Cameron will need to employ every tool at his disposal to hold the coalition together.

While the Lib Dems struggle to keep their party in line, and the Conservatives enjoy the calm before the storm, the effect of the coalition on student life has yet to be fully felt. The Lib Dems had planned to scrap tuition fees over three years, but this plan was watered down in coalition negotiations.  Now Vince Cable and the government have begun to float the idea of a Graduate tax (or contribution as they would rather it called), and whether it becomes policy come October or not, its safe to say that students will continue to pay more year-on-year for higher education.

One change, however, which is sure to make a mark in student finances is the VAT hike to 20% come the new year. This increase of 2.5% is set to make the January sales a little more expensive than usual, and will definitely make those shopping sprees come student loan day, a little less common.

Three months in review, I dont believe the country got the party it wanted, but it just might have got the party it needed in a time of financial crisis. The coalition is set for trying times, and with the Lib Dems already feeling the strain its hard to say if it will last a full parliament. For us students in the meantime, tighten your wallets, the next few years look expensive.