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A note to Greenwald and the Wired guys
By Dave Winer on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 11:28 AM.

I'm probably a fool for stepping into the middle of this, but here goes. permalink

I skimmed Glenn Greenwald's scolding of Wired, and it was a scolding, trying to pick out the core issue, which seems to be this: Wired has the complete transcript of Private Manning's confession to Adrian Lamo and Greenwald wants it, and thinks other members of the press should have it, and Wired isn't providing it. He has some theories about why Wired is withholding it, but I didn't read that stuff carefully to get the gist of it.  permalink

Then, last night, I read the two-part response from Wired from editor Evan Hansen and reporter Kevin Poulsen. The gist of their response is that there is stuff in the transcript that has no bearing on the story, that would be embarassing and/or damaging to someone, presumably Manning, and that to release it would be irresponsible. They also make some pretty nasty statements about Greenwald, that I find really disturbing. I've met Hansen, and respect the work they do at Wired. permalink

I also admire Glenn Greenwald. I try to read everything he writes, esp on WikiLeaks. Then I started to read his response to Hansen and Poulson, and got to the part where he says: "I'm going to address each and every one of their accusations in order" and hit the Back button. No way am I going there. (Note: I eventually did read both his pieces today.) permalink

There's a lot of bad blood here, obviously, but please, just drop it for now and focus on the core stuff.  permalink

Wired, could we get a third-party opinion to confirm your belief that the transcripts shouldn't be released in full? Perhaps a couple of j-school profs could review the material, and decide independently which parts would help other journalists covering this story? I'm not volunteering myself, to be clear. permalink

Hoping we can put the feelings aside for a moment, and make a good collective decision here? permalink

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