Michaela Whitton
April 6, 2016
(ANTIMEDIA) United Kingdom — A spokesperson for WikiLeaks has called for the Panama Papers to be published in full in order to ensure the public is fully informed of the revelations. In a snippet of an interview set to air on RT’s “Going Underground” Wednesday, the Icelandic investigative journalist-turned-Wikileaks representative criticized the media’s current coverage. “When they are saying this is responsible journalism, I totally disagree with the overall tone of that,” he said.
Kristin Hrafnsson, who became a spokesperson for WikiLeaks after Julian Assange became engulfed in legal battles, also told RT’S Afshin Rattansi:
“I do have a sympathy towards stalled releases, we certainly did that in WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011 with the Diplomatic Cables and we were actually highly criticised for holding back the documents. But in the end the entire cache was put online in a searchable database.”
Saying this is what he wants to see with the Panama Papers, he said the leaked data should be available to the general public — not just the group of journalists directly working on reporting on the revelations. He added that while he understands there may be a slight delay in the release of the information — in order to maximise impact — ultimately, the public should have full access to it. “That’s the new way, it’s the way that WikiLeaks operates and it is highly appreciated by the general public.” Hrafnsson insisted.
In an attempt to combat what appears to be a mainstream news monopoly on the biggest data leak in history, by Tuesday evening WikiLeaks had made 149 of the of 11.5 million Panama Papers available to the public by sharing them via DocumentCloud.
In a Twitter poll, WikiLeaks asked people if the Panama Papers should be made public and searchable. Of the 85,000 who responded, 95% said they should be.
Should we release all 11 million #PanamaPapers so everyone can search through them like our other publications?
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 3, 2016
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