July 30, 2010 | Read Time: 2 minutes
In recent days, WikiLeaks has drawn plenty of attention over its leaking of secret U.S. government documents on the war in Afghanistan. Some say the move endangers U.S. troops and Afghan informants, threatening U.S. national security.
Some observers of the nonprofit world are also accusing the charity, which provides a platform by which whistleblowers, journalists, and activists can anonymously share sensitive information with the public, of not being sufficiently transparent about its finances.
Jim Barnett, a writer and volunteer for the Nieman Journalism Lab, at Harvard University, says the group publishes next to nothing about how it is run on the “About Us” section of its Web site.
“I understand the need to protect whistleblowers and other sources,” he says. “But when it comes to the group’s finances, can’t it cut out all the James Bond stuff?”
Nonprofit journalism outlets such as WikiLeaks may be the future of journalism; skeptics of the model, meanwhile, raise questions about whether nonprofit journalism groups will become too beholden to their donors. Mr. Barnett doesn’t buy that argument, but he does say that the secrecy around WikiLeaks “invites speculation.”
That speculation was also fueled by a recent Wired article, which reported that WikiLeaks had spent only about $38,000 of $500,000 it had raised since December.
WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, did offer a few additional bits of information about the group’s financing in an article this month in the Sydney Morning Herald. He said a recent fund-raising drive brought in $1-million (twice the amount reported by Wired), most of it from small donors.
“Large trusts, though, have steered clear of WikiLeaks because of political suspicions, worries about the legality of posting leaked material on the Internet,” and other concerns, the article says.
Does WikiLeaks need to be more transparent about who its donors are — and how much it has raised and spent?
