OPINION

Leaks aren't always good for politics or journalism

News, Published on 19/10/2016

» Editor's note: This column contains language that some readers may find offensive Both journalism and politics now live in the leak culture, and both professions will be forever changed by it. Both have always benefited from leaks of some kind, from the officially authorised to the criminally filched. But today's ability to download and disseminate vast banks of information constitutes a new chapter in journalistic and political practice. Wikileaks has put US diplomatic cables in the public domain, followed by the much riskier leaking of sensitive files from the National Security Agency and that followed by the leaking of the Panama Papers, which showed how the rich secretly contrive to get richer.