Alex Reid

In 2006, the web site wikileaks.com was founded to serve as a platform for whistle blowers regarding subjects that are of a “political, diplomatic, historical or ethical interest“. But it wasn’t until April 2010, that the site gained the most attention, when it published a 39-minute unedited video and an 18-minute annotated version of U.S. military footage from a helicopter as it gunned down 12 unarmed people, including two Reuters journalists when military personnel mistook a shoulder mounted video camera as a rocket launcher.

The video came as a great embarrassment to the US military and since, the alleged source of the video is under arrest “without charges” in Kuwait and the Australian founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange has been warned not to visit the United States for fear he may be detained by the military.

It’s not unusual for there to be a backlash against whistle blowers, a persecution in the form of ‘shooting the messenger’. Even though most of the celebrated scandals in Western history have been found by whistle blowers, still today, there is little protection for whistle blowers in the United States (see Garcetti v. Ceballos /2006) as well as in Canada.

Assange’s biggest supporter is Daniel Ellsberg who himself leaked the now famous Pentagon Papers nearly 40 years ago that showed the public that the Johnson administration had lied to the public and Congress over the Vietnam war to save face. As a result, much political conspiracy was set in motion to discredit Ellsberg thanks to the cronies surrounding Nixon.

So it should come as no surprise that one of the most powerful governments in the world might have a vested interest in saving face yet again.

Political treachery is best served through freedom of the press.

The Web Host Industry Review, a consumer web hosting directory published an article written by full-time writer David Hamilton who also writes for Canada’s conservative National Post personally attacking Assange. Apparently Hamilton believes that whistle blowers have nothing to fear despite a lack of historical fact and that because a non-profit loose organization didn’t renew their SSL certificate, it all falls on Assange’s head.

The article’s title is what drew my attention: Increasingly Suspicious Website, Wikileaks, Fails to Pay SSL Bill

SSL is used to secure communication from sender to receiver and would be a deciding factor against someone submitting sensitive information if it weren’t for the already fact that Wikileaks is naturally a target for hackers. It should be said that Wikileaks has had their funding problems because it’s volunteer-run and for unknown reasons Paypal suspended its account in January 2010 for a few days, causing financial problems. Perhaps Hamilton is suggesting that non-profits should be run and funded like corporations, somehow.

Hamilton references Jason Mick from Daily Tech who feels that today’s Ellsberg should have loads of free time on his hands because he didn’t get the response he wanted, yet sees this response from Assange as a “a vague threat which [Assange] refused to elaborate on”:

The allegations are false. If you continue to print false material, there will be repercussions. Mr. Lamo is by no means a credible source. It is disturbing that you entertain him.

This response of course would imply that Mick made some sort of implication prior to said requested interview. The bias is listed when Mick refers to the founder of a web site as “the director” implying distinctly that Assange controls the content on a ‘Wikipedia-like’ web site.

Hamilton again references Mick’s assertion that Assange personally lied about its board members because someone wrote on the Wikileaks Facebook group that Noam Chomsky was involved in the project. Really? You’re referencing what someone wrote on Facebook as a sustained fact from the founder himself?

Next up on the attack list, apparently Assange is at fault further because he was stopped by customs leaving Australia and his passport was canceled because ”it was looking worn”. Australian authorities would have you believe that it’s just a coincidence that they happen to be a partner in the Iraq war, or that this has nothing to do with the fact that Wikileaks was the source of the blacklists that the Australian government used to block access to over 10,000 web sites including Wikipedia which prompted political embarrassment.

It’s been suggested that the filtering proposal, something that only 15% of Australians supported, was the last nail in Kevin Rudd’s political career as leader of the country that led to his resignation last month.

Now this issue is a whole other bag of hammers; Australian authorities have been trying to block a list of web sites promoting child pornography, illegal content, hate speech and pro-suicide web sites, but have included anti-abortion web sites and sites that mirror content similar to the gunning down of civilians aforementioned.

For example, the iconic death of Neda Agha-Soltan caught on a cell phone video which Time magazine called “probably the most widely witnessed death in human history” and was the rallying point for those fighting for free elections in Iran last year. The video was the 2009 winner of the George Polk award for videography. Yet the Australian government deemed this “prohibited content” and threatened any web site which linked to the video with daily fines of $11,000.

Just imagine if this video was blocked by the government as well.

But worrying about censorship is just paranoid thinking, asserts Hamilton.

Assange was the winner of the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award for exposing extrajudicial assassinations in Kenya with the investigation The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances. Not long after this, six gunmen tried to enter his home there but were scared off by a bodyguard.

There isn’t much criticism against Assange except what Hamilton says, what Mick says and what trashy gossip site Gawker.com (which Hamilton references) says. Gawker.com claims that Assange stated this was an assassination attempt (yet fail to reference it) yet they are sure it’s just a normal robbery attempt because they have a lot of experience in Kenya. I should note that Gawker’s main argument against Assange is that he has wild hair and looks like a hobo.

Oh, and the government isn’t too pleased about leaks.

Ellsberg could tell you a bit about a robbery.

Last November, a mob of excited teenage girls awaiting rising tween pop star Justin Bieber at a planned mall concert performance grew unruly and police were called in. Unable to control the crowd which saw one girl hospitalized after a stampede in the mall, police ordered Bieber’s manager to update his Twitter account with an announcement that the concert was canceled.

Police claim Scott “Scooter” Braun delayed this order by 90 minutes while Braun’s lawyer says he did so within 7 minutes. If he did post any update, it’s been deleted.

Last week, Braun turned himself in to the authorities on two misdemeanor charges – reckless endangerment and criminal nuisance. He faces a year in prison if convicted. Will Mr. Braun be the new “Birdman of Alcatraz“?

The overwhelming comments floating around the blogosphere is that this is outrageous on so many levels. While I understand what a publication ban is, newspapers have been ordered to print apologies or public notices, rarely does this cover ordering a private citizen to update a social status update. If this goes to court without a reduced sentence, it will answer the core question of whether this is legal and/or if this is a realistic demand.

Secondly, police couldn’t control a crowd of teenage girls? If these were anti-war or police-brutality protesters, history has proven that most police departments would have little hesitation to bring order. What an embarrassment for the Nassau County Police!

Third, what fan follows an artist’s manager or agent? If ordering someone to update their social status update was even legitimate, the direction should have been put to the star himself.

(ps. Did police think that the manager controlled the star’s Twitter account?)

The recent late night television fiasco that became of NBC’s scheduling screw up has enthralled media industry insiders and TV watchers alike.

On September 27, 2004, on the 50^th anniversary of The Tonight Show, host Jay Leno announced on the show that he would be stepping down in 2009 and that Conan O’Brien would succeed him as the host of the “dynasty”.

In 2009, NBC announced it would give Leno a new one hour long show to be aired at the 10 PM timeslot, literally a prime time move. At the end of May, Leno passed the torch as promised to O’Brien.

Months after the premiere of Leno’s new show in Fall 2009, it was consistently obvious that the ratings for Leno’s show had fallen, by as much as 53% (49% in the Los Angeles market alone). This caused a considerable negative domino effect upon the affiliates’ 11 PM late-night news timeslot ratings. This in turn impacted O’Brien’s The Tonight Show as well as the show he left that followed him, now hosted by Jimmy Fallon.

In January, under considerable pressure from the local affiliates, NBC admitted defeat and announced that Leno would be given back his old timeslot at 11:35 PM but his hour long show would be reduced to 30 minutes and that O’Brien’s The Tonight Show would air at 12:05 AM. It was reported in the media that O’Brien was not consulted by the move and soon issued a press release stating that he would not move and that this was damaging the integrity of the show itself.

While O’Brien made a correct assertion that a show aired at 12:05 AM technically would not be The Tonight Show (competing talk show host David Letterman suggested it would be called “The Tomorrow Show”), O’Brien’s contract with NBC did stipulate that his show could be aired at 12:05 AM without penalty, presumably to allow overruns for sports events.

Legally speaking, at the time, Conan had two options: do the show or quit.

Instead he stayed quiet – a smart strategy no doubt advised by his super agent Ari Emmanuel – on the issue. Sure, he made jokes about it. He had to, that’s his job. But outside the show and in public, he simply said he wouldn’t budge. This forced all eyes to be cast upon NBC for a response. Another thing that helped was the sheer velocity of public support for the underdog, fuelled by the masses online. Facebook groups, physical rallies and other online campaigns called for “Coco” to keep his show with the original timeslot.

Days later NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker threatened to simply take Conan off TV for not only the two and half years left on his contract, but for another year, citing a non-compete clause which was not accurately true.

After two weeks of punishing jokes from everyone in late night TV about NBC, the network agreed to buy out O’Brien from his contract by paying him $33 million (what he would have earned had he stayed) and $12 million to go to his staff (approximately 200 people) some of whom had re-located their families for the show. Sidekick Andy Richter and bandleader Max Weinberg still have to negotiate their own settlements.

The terms of the settlement also bench O’Brien from television until September 1st, 2010. He also cannot make disparaging comments about NBC, appear on other talk shows or do interviews until September. And of course NBC owns all Intellectual Property of the comedy bits that O’Brien performed as part of the show.

Where O’Brien will go is anyone’s guess right now: HBO, Fox, TBS or FX?

Kevin Reilly, the President of Entertainment for Fox, was one of the first to enter the fray last week, suggesting that O’Brien would be “a perfect match” for Fox as they had no late night show offering. It should be noted that Reilly was also “shoved out” of NBC in 2007, after having served the same role within NBC.

Ultimately, however, Fox would have to win over the local affiliates if they want O’Brien to take on Leno and Letterman. As it is, most of them are running reruns that make a substantial amount of money for those stations.

If you’re interested in corporate treachery and the behind-the-scenes story that happened recently with Leno and O’Brien, I highly recommend watching The Late Shift, which chronicles the previous conflict involving The Tonight Show (the one Leno said he wanted to avoid a repeat of). In both cases, then and now, NBC wanted to keep both hosts but ultimately favoured Leno as the breadwinner.

What I found interesting in the movie wasn’t that Leno reportedly hid in a closet to overhear an executive conference call that may or may not have cemented his job; it was the legal tactics involved. Treat Williams wonderfully plays Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz whom Letterman had gone to after finding out that he was being passed over for Leno.

Letterman has a "Godfather" moment with Mike Ovitz in The Late Shift

Letterman was also afflicted with a variety of clauses in favour of NBC (most likely because he didn’t have an agent representing him and simply wanted the job as host in 1982). One of the terms was that Letterman could not approach any other network for 18 months. So Ovitz simply put the word out to have the networks approach him. Letterman couldn’t reach out but he could listen.

Another clause was that NBC had the right to winningly match any offer another network made, so CBS offered a $15 million penalty if they could not give him the a timeslot before midnight, something that NBC obviously couldn’t do without simply giving Letterman The Tonight Show.

Ovitz was indeed on top of the game.

But I think what we witnessed here was more than legal and media wrangling, it was (yet again) the awesome power of the Internet. Sure, other talk show hosts made jokes but only because the TV audience expected it, and journalists wrote article after article every hour on the hour, but again because readers expected it.

People massed together for the underdog, just as they would have for Letterman if the social technology had existed then. And while this may seem like a great embarrassment for NBC, just as it seemed in the 1990s, all this attention may just have more people tuning in. To NBC’s credit, they’ve openly made available most of the parting shots by O’Brien on their web site.

As it is said: all publicity is good publicity, even bad publicity.

Paul Pritchard, who video recorded the scuffle between RCMP and Polish resident Robert Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver Airport two years ago, has won an award from the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

The award is the first-ever for citizen journalism [in Canada].

The video has handed over to RCMP at the time with the promise that the video would be returned within 48 hours; a promise that was later reneged. It wasn’t until Pritchard began legal proceedings and participated in a press conference when he feared “police cover up” that the RCMP returned the video.

Pritchard then sold the video to CBC, CTV and Global for several thousand dollars. The video contradicted what the RCMP initially said about the incident, and began a national outrage and later an inquiry into the incident.

“Without the tape we wouldn’t have had the journalistic investigation, the year-long inquiry into the incident, and we wouldn’t have seen the safer use of the taser by police departments across the country,” said Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) President Arnold Amber.

“The remarkable partnership between investigative journalists and the citizen who recorded the last minutes of Dziekanski’s life has led to all these revelations and impact.” Amber added “What he did probably will save many other lives down the road.”

Last month, Macleans magazine issued a bold exposition; assessing our cities.

Instead of measuring citizen’s happiness or measuring young professionals’ choices, the survey – conducted by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) – looked at the performance of city services compared to the cost. The magazine explained:

For without some sort of yardstick to measure their performance, either against other cities or against their own past record, how can they hope to know whether they are succeeding?

Macleans was quick to point out that their survey is different than the Frontier Centre’s Performance Index which they say measured how efficient Canadian cities are (doing things right) while Macleans was trying to measure how effective they are (doing the right thing).

There were two conflicting factors in the survey. One was inconsistency. Upon hearing the results, some cities’ Mayors complained that their city was unique and did not compare justly to other cities. And the fact is that some provinces maintain certain services while in other provinces, it is the cities that maintain those services. It was like comparing apples to oranges in many cases. A city that has a lot of crime may not be the fault of the police, just as a city that suffers a lot of snowfall may have to spend a lot of effort and money to plow it.

However the bigger problem in comparing the cities was the utter lack of transparency. In many cases, many cities either didn’t collect any data or feedback on their service levels or straight out did not release it to the public. But this all comes back to the main point, if we aren’t allowed to know the data which we already paid for, then how can we properly judge the decision making of our community leaders, or more importantly understand our weaknesses and improve upon that?

Macleans stated that if more than half the top 30 cities did not release information on a certain indicator, it was left blank such as “fire department response times or the percentage of roads in good condition” and if a city (like Victoria and Laval) didn’t release much data, they were dropped from the overall score. Painfully, one third of the cities offered very little data, specifically in regards to safety and protection (police and fire services). So AIMS had to rely on other previous works in the field of municipal assessment, such as Ontario’s Municipal Performance Measurement Program which started in 2000.

It’s not perfect, AIMS admits, but it’s a start. Assuming that Macleans will sponsor this survey on an annual basis, researchers hope that a pattern will emerge and hopefully pressure for open government data will prevail. In the meantime, it’s all meant for consideration.

FOR ALL THE DETAILED DATA, click here.

One interesting point was that the cities near the top of the list tended to have low voter turnouts while those cities near the bottom had the highest voter turnouts in Canada. Perhaps happiness equates to apathy?

Another interesting trend appears to be geographical, lending weight that the provinces or regional attitudes may play a part in local city centres.

Three of the top four cities in the Macleans list are in Vancouver and its suburbs. Quebec contains three top cities (Longueuil, Sherbrooke and Quebec City) in the top ten list, and apparently have the best fire and police services in Canada. Four cities in the Atlantic region ranked in the bottom third of the list. Winnipeg scored well with having the fourth most city employees per capita and Winnipeg Transit scored really well.