[UPDATED]: Journalism and the law-- WikiLeaks material

Now that the mid-term is over, you can start reading up for our next class!  Lots of important, thorny issues.

Starting with this story from the Chicago Reader:  Journalists have been lobbying for a national "shield law" for years-- to help them protect their sources.  But a bill is held up in Congress right now over the question:  Who is a journalist?  (Sound familiar?)

Now, the main event for this week:  WikiLeaks, the group that released almost 400,000 classified military documents about the Iraq war last weekend.  The New York Times and three European newspapers received advance access to the documents and published stories based on them when WikiLeaks published the material.

There's a lot to read here.

1. The most helpful place to start is also the longest article (no, it's not as long as the 400,000 documents themselves):  A New Yorker profile of WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange, published last June.  It's epic.  You'll probably want to print out a copy.

2.  Compare this to the profile of Assange that the Times published last weekend to go with its Iraq War reporting based on the WikiLeaks documents.

3.  This opinion piece from Fox News suggests that the U.S. government should declare WikiLeaks staff to be "enemy combatants" and punish them accordingly.  Also, please go to the comments page to see the response.  Sort them by "oldest first" and read through the first few pages.

4.  Sample the NY Times reporting that grew out of the WikiLeaks project.   Be sure to read this story about the role of private contractors and this one about civilian deaths.