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Call for revolution in reporting of events

Dubai: The lack of transparency highlighted by the release of thousands of diplomatic cables by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks to the international press, was raised as a major issue at a discussion of the site's use at the Arab Media Forum on Tuesday.
"Wikileaks has become a source of information in the Arab world, because of a lack of transparency," Hasni Abaidi, director, Centre for Studies and Research on the Arab and Mediterranean World (Cermam), Switzerland, said.
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"We should ask ourselves why Arab officials speak so openly with US officials… Why shouldn't we be honest when addressing our people? Honesty does exist in discussion with Arab officials. This is a media revolution," he said.
In a slight change to the scheduled speaker, Matthew Bostrom, Senior vice-president and director of Apco Online, UK, pointed out that when the cables were released onto WikiLeaks, diplomats didn't take issue with the validity of the information.
"They haven't said they [the cables] were false, but that they shouldn't be released," he said.
WikiLeaks co-ordinated with a number of international media outlets on two occasions; releasing diplomatic cables relating to casualties suffered in Iraq and also on issues relating to military operations in Afghanistan.
One of the outlets involved was French newspaper Le Monde. Sylvie Kauffman, editor-in-chief, spoke at the session in defence of Le Monde's publication of the cables. Speculation when the cables were released surrounded whether any sources could be identified from publication of the information and whether this would endanger any lives.
"When we found the name or publication of a source that might endanger his or her security, we decided to erase the names. There is a big journalistic issue in transparency, but it was responsible transparency," Kauffman said.
Translational issues, dis-information and gossip and the political agenda of the site were also topics raised throughout the discussion, as well as founder Julian Assange himself.
"Assange wants to be called the media James Bond," Abaidi said. "At the same time he's protecting the UK, but he uses illegal tools."
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