In Who Enabled Russian “Interference” With Election? (Facts, Yes, Facts), I posted queries against the New York Times Article API that counted all their stories on both Wikileaks and Hillary Clinton between September 1, 2016 and November 7, 2016.
You can run the queries for yourself (unlike CIA “evidence” which remains a matter of rumor and conjecture) but the final results show that from September 1, 2016 and November 7, 2016, the New York Times published articles on Wikileaks and Hillary Clinton 252 times.
Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane posted The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S., which is a lengthy recounting of the events and coverage of the Clinton/Wikileaks story.
The authors characterize the roles of the Times and the press as:
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Every major publication, including The Times, published multiple stories citing the D.N.C. and Podesta emails posted by WikiLeaks, becoming a de facto instrument of Russian intelligence.
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I responded to an earlier New York Times criticism of Wikileaks in Drip, Drip, Drip, Leaking At Wikileaks saying:
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The New York Times, a sometimes collaborator with Wikileaks (The War Logs (NYT)), has sponsored a series of disorderly and nearly incoherent attacks on Wikileaks for these leaks.
The dominant theme in those attacks is that readers should not worry their shallow and insecure minds about social media but rely upon media outlets to clearly state any truth readers need to know.
I am not exaggerating. The exact language that appears in one such attack was:
…people rarely act like rational, civic-minded automatons. Instead, we are roiled by preconceptions and biases, and we usually do what feels easiest — we gorge on information that confirms our ideas, and we shun what does not.
Is that how you think of yourself? It is how the New York Times thinks about you.
There are legitimate criticisms concerning Wikileaks and its drip, drip, drip leaking but the Times manages to miss all of them.
For example, the daily drops of Podesta emails, selected on some “unknown to the public” criteria, prevented the creation of a coherent narrative by reporters and the public. The next day’s leak might contain some critical link, or not.
Reporters, curators and the public were teased with drips and drabs of information, which served to drive traffic to the Wikileaks site, traffic that serves no public interest.
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Wikileaks/Assange weren’t seeking a coherent narrative but rather a knee-jerk ringing of the Clinton/Wikileaks bell.
Once all the emails appeared, there was some personal embarrassment to be sure but any New York cop would be saying: “Show’s over, nothing to see here, move along, move along.”
The strategy of drip, drip, drip leaking kept the press in a high state of alert, despite the nearly universal disappointment that followed every actual leak.
Lessons Learned?
If the data for leaking is weak and/or mundane, wait for critical time frames when time for reflection is in short supply and deadlines are tight. Then leak with great show and promise the “next” leak will be the one with real juicy details.
If your data is strong, “smoking gun,” sort of stuff, you may want to pick off opponents one at a time.
What’s your strategy for leaking data?