October 22, 2010

WikiLeaks Iraq Dump Is On

WikiLeaks/<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/WL_Helping_Hand.jpg/500px-WL_Helping_Hand.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


[UPDATE: As of 5 p.m. EDT Friday, the WikiLeaks Iraq documents have dropped…all 391,831 of them. They are accessible in a searchable database here. Find anything you think is worth highlighting? Want to help drive MoJo‘s coverage? Let us know in the comments below, or email scoop@motherjones.com.]

WikiLeaks and its erstwhile mainstream media partners this weekend will release hundreds of thousands of documents relating to the Iraq war’s conduct, a representative of one of the news organizations confirmed to Mother Jones.

A New York Times representative told MoJo that the data dump is coming soon, and other news outlets are reporting that the leak will form the basis of the Times’ page 1 coverage Saturday. Al-Jazeera also confirmed the leak, saying it “has had full access to the documents.” That would be a new development; in previous Afganistan coverage, WikiLeaks has leaned exclusively on the Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel.

The Iraq document dump had been rumored to occur earlier this week, but WikiLeaks’ secretive honcho, Julian Assange, took potshots at those reports. It appears the leak had been held off to give the mainstream news organizations more time to mull the documents over, but that couldn’t immediately be confirmed Friday.

In any case, like the DOD, Mother Jones has a team of knowledgeable investigators ready to pore over the document database once it’s published. What specific issues or incidents would you most like to see investigated? Leave a comment below or email scoop@motherjones.com.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate