The New Fourth Branch: The Rise of the Hackers
America ı By Jeff Watterson
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Walter Lippmann, an American writer and journalist, once said, “There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.” In the United States, the newspapers and journalistic media have often been referred to as the “Fourth Branch” of government. The term refers to the idea that the press serves as another “check and balance” on the other branches by keeping citizens informed.
This is especially true in election years.
In any election cycle, there is extensive media coverage of the candidates, as journalists endeavor to dig up facts on the people seeking office and report them to the public. The light in which this media coverage portrays a given candidate can have an enormous, even decisive impact on their political fate. If candidates have skeletons in their closet that could influence the vote, the popular feeling is that America has a right to know.
But, what happens when America doesn’t trust the media?
In January, Pew Research released results of a study that found that Millennials’ views of news media are very critical, with 27% saying that it has a positive impact, down from 40% in 2010.
In September, Gallup released poll results on the level of trust that Americans have in the media. According to the poll, only 32% of Americans said they have “a great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in Mass Media. The report notes that this number has fallen 8 points from last year.
This is in sharp contrast to a poll conducted by YouGov, that found 41% of Americans had a favorable opinion of WikiLeaks, while only 29% held unfavorable opinions.
Since its founding, WikiLeaks has been responsible for a number of high-profile revelations concerning the US war in Afghanistan, conditions for detainees in Guantanamo Bay, and most recently, candidates running for political office. Because most of WikiLeaks' information is obtained illicitly, this last point has brought the impact of hacking on modern American elections and politics to the forefront of public attention.
WikiLeaks is a non-profit organization that was founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, an online activist from Australia. Only three people aside from Assange – Kristinn Hrafnsson, Joseph Farrell, and Sarah Harrison – are known to be affiliated with WikiLeaks. The rest of its network shrouded in secrecy. Assange himself currently resides in London, United Kingdom, but he is stranded – indefinitely – in the Embassy of Ecuador in the UK, with London police under orders to arrest him if he ever emerges onto English soil.
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