A Leak From Above

Last week, my attention was captured by a shocking story that I found while browsing the Huffington Post. The case I am referring to has now gained worldwide media attention because it involves video - taken from a U.S. Army Apache helicopter - as the pilots reign bombs down on innocent Iraqis. Shot in 2007, the video, which was leaked from inside the Pentagon to WikiLeaks, a Swedish-based organization that publishes anonymous videos that focus on government and military cases. The video is horrifying, especially since the two American pilots inside the helicopter sound giddy as they reign bombs down in a populated city street. However, that is not the worst, or most horrifying, part of the video.

Unfortunately, the on-ground targets the pilots in the Apache killed were not terrorists, but Iraqi civilians and a Reuters photographer. What the helicopter pilots mistook as an r.p.g. turned out to be photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen's camera. The whole video, which is unlike anything I have ever seen before, is an important milestone for independent media because three years ago, this story could not have been leaked. With websites such as WikiLeaks, investigative journalism still survives to serve as a vital tool for holding governments and military powers responsible.

What is most impressive about WikiLeaks is that even though they possessed this video for weeks, they took their time in order to be accurate. That is true journalism, and something too few "journalistic" websites are doing today. As clearly shown by this latest incident, WikiLeaks is a promising independent media organization that has already affected change by getting the U.S. military to admit they killed innocent people. While it remains unclear who leaked the video to WikiLeaks, what is clear is that the Internet now provides people with the ultimate platform to spread messages that are being silenced by the mainstream media. That's encouraging news.