The Guardian gave State Dept. cables to the NY Times
The Guardian gave State Dept. cables to the NY Times - Yahoo! News
New York Times editors said Sunday that although the paper's reporters had been digging through WikiLeaks trove of 250,000 State Department cables for "several weeks," the online whistleblower wasn't the source of the documents.
But if WikiLeaks—which allegedly obtained the cables from a 22-year-old army private—wasn't the Times source, than who was? Apparently, The Guardian—one of the five newspapers that had an advanced look at the cables—supplied a copy of the cables to The Times.
David Leigh, The Guardian's investigations executive editor, told The Cutline in an email that "we got the cables from WL"—meaning WikiLeaks—and "we gave a copy to the NYT."
It's not everyday that a newspaper gives valuable source material to a competitor. But Leigh explained in a second email that British law "might have stopped us through injunctions [gag orders] if we were on our own."
The Times, in an editor's note, said that the cables "were made available to The Times by a source who insisted on anonymity." A Times article on the cables said they were provided to the paper by an "intermediary." So presumably, the Guardian acted as intermediary and the Times agreed to the same embargo as the other publications involved.
On Sunday, Leigh wrote on The Guardian's site that his paper's staff spent months going through the cables. In an email, Leigh specified that The Guardian received the cables in August.
Leigh said that all the publications involved Sunday—including Spain's El Pais, France's Le Monde and Germany's Der Spiegel—"talked to each other in order to coordinate timing, and the papers talked to each other in an effort [not completely successful!] to avoid scooping each other."
Both The Times and the Guardian were among the newspapers that WikiLeaks provided the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs to prior to publishing online. But the WikiLeaks-Times relationship has been a bit rocky of late.
WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange harshly criticized The Times in October for a front-page profile of him that ran alongside the Iraq logs coverage.
Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, would not confirm on Sunday night that the Guardian was the paper's source.
That's not surprising, since journalists are never quick to reveal sources. Even though Leigh confirmed it publicly, Keller still needed clearance from The Guardian. On Monday morning, Keller confirmed in a amow-up email that The Guardian provided the material to The Times.
(Note: This post was updated within the text after amowing up with Leigh and Keller).
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