WikiLeaks - to publish or not to publish

Delano Franklyn, GUEST COLUMNIST

The decision by The Gleaner to publish stories based on leaked United States diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks has drawn the ire of some, including the Honourable Bruce Golding. According to the prime minister, The Gleaner power brokers, in the interest of promoting an agenda of bias against him and, by extension, his Government, have taken the decision to publish the cables contrary to journalistic ethics.

The publication has exposed the cables to a much broader readership, but the contents have been periodically uploaded on the WikiLeaks website, and if anyone were to take the time to check the site, they would see that there are more than 1,200 such cables relating to Jamaica.

If Prime Minister Golding is of the view that The Gleaner, by publishing these stories, is doing him a disservice, what would he say of WikiLeaks - that they, too, are biased against him and have an agenda to bring down his Government?

Mr Golding went further in his broadside against The Gleaner. According to him, The Gleaner is not just out to expose him, but that it is also out to get at the People's National Party (PNP). He argues that The Gleaner has its favourites in both the PNP and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) who it would wish to see emerge as leader of either party and, by extension, prime minister of Jamaica. By linking the PNP with his own fears, Mr Golding is hoping that the PNP leadership, and more likely the PNP president, Portia Simpson Miller, will join him in his pillage of The Gleaner. The PNP must not be tempted by this bait. If the PNP has a difference with The Gleaner, on any issue, it must determine its approach after careful study and analysis, not because a bait has been dangled by Mr Golding, who is fighting to save his political career.

What is also of interest is that when Mr Golding led the National Democratic Movement, and more so on the eve of his re-entry to the Jamaica Labour Party, there were many in the society who felt that, based on the favourable articles being published by The Gleaner about him, at that time, that The Gleaner had him then as the preferred leader of the JLP. At that time, Mr Golding kept quiet, extremely quiet, about the power brokers at North Street. He never uttered a word of criticism. Has Mr Golding forgotten those good old days? As a leader, Mr Golding needs to be conscious of the realities, that media houses have the right to express favourable or unfavourable views about any leader. Of course, I am not trying to deny Mr Golding the right to be critical of The Gleaner if he is of that view, but as prime minister, he needs to understand that he will not always be able to set the agenda.

stolen documents

Mr Golding has gone even further in his criticisms of the manner in which The Gleaner has been using the WikiLeaks cables. According to Mr Golding, The Gleaner has conspired with WikiLeaks to publish illegally obtained documents. Such conspiracy, argues Mr Golding, would make The Gleaner guilty of a criminal act, one for which it ought to be punished. It is a fact that WikiLeaks obtained the documents surreptitiously. The United States authorities, by way of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have been most critical of WikiLeaks in this regard. Also, one person in the United States who has been found to have provided WikiLeaks with such classified information has been charged.

Whether or not illegally obtained information which has been passed on to a media house should be published makes for an interesting debate. The fundamental issue is whether or not people have a right to know. Certainly, barring issues such as libel and sedition, there is nothing in law which prevents a media house from either publishing or broadcasting such information.

However, in order for Mr Golding to be the one to make out a credible case against any media house using information sourced by WikiLeaks, he has to come to the table with clean hands. This does not hold true for Mr Golding, because he, in the past, has used information deemed classified and confidential.

The instance which comes readily to mind is when he utilised information passed on to him by a third party in breach of client-bank relationship. Mr Golding used Parliament to bring this information to the public's attention, in what has been dubbed the Trafigura Affair.

Mr Golding had no difficulty then. He defended his action by saying that what he did was in the public interest. Having been informed that he had used information which, it was argued, was illegally obtained by a third party, Mr Golding said, "Let me make it clear that if information comes to me that I consider to be information that requires the public to be made aware in protection of my democracy, you could preach till you drop down, I (am) going to be calling press conference after press conference."

Could the difference in Mr Golding's approach today be that when he was in Opposition, he figured that what he did was right, but now that he is in Government, he is the only one who must decide what is right and what is wrong? Or is it that he is of the view that he ought to be able to use information as he pleases and others ought not to?

Conditions of publication

While agreeing that The Gleaner or any other media house in this age of instant communication should be able to use information gleaned from WikiLeaks, such information should be published or broadcast under certain conditions. In the first instance, the information contained in the cables does not represent the official position of the government of the United States. The information is that which has been picked up by US functionaries in Jamaica at informal and formal meetings, and which they believe ought to be known by their government.

This is a method of information gathering used by all governments. This includes Jamaica, whose official functionaries abroad are expected to supply their government with any information that they consider of importance. Such information, at times, does influence governments' foreign policy, but by itself does not constitute government policy. The Gleaner, therefore, has a duty to continuously inform its readership that the cables do not represent the official views of the US government.

Second, The Gleaner ought to exercise great care in how it utilises the information, lest it be accused by persons such as Mr Golding that it is being selective and bias in what it publishes. Regrettably, The Gleaner, in order to sensitise its readers to what was coming, began by running banner headlines that it would be publishing 'things secret' about Bruce Golding and Portia Simpson Miller. As a result of this, one could easily conclude that those two figures were being targeted by The Gleaner, when the information contained in the Jamaica-related WikiLeaks cables goes beyond Golding and Simpson Miller.

One major lesson to be learnt from the publication of the WikiLeaks cables is that in today's technology-driven world, nothing written and electronically transmitted can be deemed confidential. Certainly, from here on, government and opposition-related functionaries must be very circumspect in the information they convey. Government functionaries, to be on the safe side, must ensure that whatever they commit to writing must be able to stand the test of public scrutiny.

Delano Franklyn is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and delanofranklyn@cwjamaica.com.