WikiLeaks and the End of Privacy

There wasn't much left to be protected anyway in a 24/7 online media world.

Every tweet, blogpost, and facebook comment is continually data mined by groups looking to sense cultural trends, voter intentions and commercial possibilities. And those are just the more benign snoops.

Intelligence gathering proceeds rapidly and even as the most powerful algorithm search engines are working to detect suspicious cyber-chatter in order to forestall the next round of terrorism.

Which leads me to wonder what possible benefits could be found in Julian Assange's exercise in narcissistic voyeurism, known as WikiLeaks. Not much so far, apparently.

While I'm all in favor of accountability, the sheer nakedness and egotism of the WikiLeaks culture is astonishing. Media organizations clearly found the prospect of a peek behind the diplomatic curtain to be irresistible. But resist it, they should have, in order to save us from more pointless and politically minimal revelations.

What WikiLeaks has accomplished is hard to discern. It has made American policy analysis appear more sensible and smart than many could have imagined. If WikiLeaks thought that these cables would undermine US foreign policy, it has had quite the opposite effect. Over time, the content of these cables may be more useful for historians, but for journalists today, not so much.

Unfortunately, WikiLeaks has been able to embolden others who feel that any authority may now be fair game. It wouldn't surprise me if the anarchist bombers in Rome found some form of indirect encouragement in the WikiLeaks cables. I'm sure that someone in that nutty group surmised: If releasing a few thousands documents might destabilize government policy, think what a couple of parcel bombs could do.

In the end, the ability of journalism to do a fair job of finding out what decisions get made, who makes them and the consequences of those choices has been set back considerably. Governments like secrecy. Journalists oppose it. But secrets, exposed or contained, still need a measure of accountability. Is a secret worth exposing? And if not, why not? WikiLeaks hasn't answered that and neither have the First Amendment fundamentalists.

And if the US Government (which is more accountable than most) is now considered to be
a legitimate target for cyber-warriors, what about the rest of us?  None of us should feel confident that WikiLeaks has the interests of ordinary citizens in mind.

That should cause us all a few more sleepless nights.

Bad News and Good News from Africa

Let's have the bad news first. The election in Côte d'Ivoire has turned into a disaster as the
losing candidate and now ex-president refuses to relinquish office.

Alassane Ouattara clearly won the election and the vote has been recognized by the United Nations, Canada and the United States, among other. But the violence perpetrated by the followers of ex-president Laurent Gbagbo is growing daily. Efforts by the African Union to mediate a solution have so far failed.

Now the very good news:

Alpha Condé is now the first legally elected president of the neighboring West African nation of Guinea. The first since France granted the former colony independence in 1958. The election wasn't without its drama and its delays. But as of this week, President Condé was sworn into office in a ceremony that did all Guineans proud.

Back in June I was asked to go to the capital, Conakry to help journalists in Guinea prepare to cover the election and to do it in a way that emphasized the need for social peace and a calm political transformation. The process was almost derailed once or twice when party hooligan attempted to intimidate voters.

There was also some violence and several people were killed at election rallies. So it wasn't entirely without its tragic elements. But with the help of a number of deeply committed people from a variety of NGOs and public diplomacy workers especially from the US and France, a real transformation occurred. Less attention was paid to the election in Côte d'Ivoire.

Working with Guinean journalists was a powerful experience - one of the best in my career -  and I am delighted that the outcome is so affirming, especially after what the people of Conakry particularly have endured under previous military regimes. In September of 2009, a pro-democracy demonstration in the capital was murderously suppressed with 150 dead. This was followed by a rampage of rape by a pro-regime regiment. One local doctor was quoted as saying that hundreds of women had been violated in the streets of Conakry. When I was there, people were still in shock at what had happened.

The Mexican writer Octavio Paz once observed that "anyone who has looked Hope in the face will never forget it. He will seek it everywhere he goes."

A Media Education and Final Exams

I won't be blogging for another couple of weeks until I finish teaching and marking papers.

I've enjoyed teaching my three courses at Centennial College and the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus. I hope the students got something out of it as well.

One fascinating aspect of teaching Media Theory was the amazing perspectives of these young(er) people. Many are media consumers by osmosis. They are aware of media as an environmental scan, without necessarily being wedded to one form or another.

They don't believe in appointment viewing, listening or reading. They simply inhale media.

The other interesting aspect was teaching my largest class ever - almost 300 students. I estimate about 40% of them are from China. This made for some interesting challenges in teaching Media Theory because many cultural assumptions about how media work or not, don't necessarily apply to students whose concept of media may be less about liberal democracy and more about emerging technologies.

In Toronto, there have been a number of recent articles about the large number of students from China on Canadian campuses. One in particular in MacLeans Magazine ("Too Asian?") has been cited for an anti-Chinese bias, alleging that Canadians are feeling overwhelmed by the numbers and by the Chinese drive to succeed. Canadians students (and their parents) said they feel like partying sluggards compared to their Chinese counterparts.

I won't repeat the clichés here, (I'll save them for later) but in my classes, I was impressed by the Chinese students' focus, work ethic and determination to succeed, even if their written English needs work...Canadian students could learn a lot from them.

Yet there is an undeniable cultural divide. The road from Shanghai to Scarborough can be abrupt: one young Chinese woman when asked "what is the purpose of journalism" responded:

"The purpose of journalism is to re-educate the parasitic classes."

Good luck to them all.