Waste papers

The Wikileaks publication of secret US State Department cables has created a vast field for dubious ‘shocking sensations’ and scandalous news, and journalists are working on them non-stop. In fact, however, a major part of these ‘sensations’ are nothing more than blatant lies wrapped up in the US State Department emblem, which gives them a certain degree of credibility for the masses.

The flood of unverified information poured out to the public through the media is combined with fervent discussions and various interpretations by so-called ‘experts’ and ‘specialists’, who were themselves puzzled by the event. So, in the end, all these cheesy ‘news’ stories seem to be fairly credible. 

The German paper ‘Der Spiegel’ published an article that gathered almost all the unverified ‘news’ and added its own ‘sauce’ to the ‘salad’. The bright and artistic style of the article makes its readers accept all the information without analyzing it. The fact that this is a ‘contract publication’ is in no doubt, the only question is: who needs this slander to be promulgated? The US State Department itself has emphasized that not all the cables reflect the real state of affairs and all of them are based on US diplomats’ personal, and thus subjective, opinions and even mere rumours.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to apologize personally for all these ‘analytical opinions’ to the leaders of countries affected by the publication. She telephoned Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and reassured him that the US values its friendly relations with Azerbaijan and plans to develop them further, as the republic is an important strategic partner for the USA.

The media’s desire to make Wikileaks’ materials as spicy as possible can only be explained if we assume that someone wants to cast certain politicians or even whole countries in a bad light. And this desire often ends up as some scandalous provocation. ‘Vestnik Kavkaza’ has already informed our readers about some cases of such blatant slander. We can't explain why such a respectful media agency as ‘Der Spiegel’ falls for unverified sensations and publishes materials based on false information. Freedom of speech should not be interpreted as freedom of lies and disinformation, and such a respectable paper as ‘Der Spiegel’ should be well aware of this.