Unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard something about Wikileaks.  And chances are just as good that you’ve formed an opinion about the website.  Whether it is a beacon of hope or a traitorous organization, the public, and especially the media, has made its opinions known widely and swiftly, with each new unveiling of U.S. security documents.  I trust for most of us, the subject may be getting a little old.  But before you stop discussing it or file it away as yesterday’s news, take a brief moment to contemplate what is actually going on: it is pure media evolution—one that is as inevitable as the powerful people’s own rejection of the old ways.

If we take for granted that the Free Press—the only industry enshrined in the Bill of Rights—is the Fourth Estate and is required for a free society (as most constitutional scholars believe it is), then we recognize the role, scope, and importance of the press as a check, not so much on government itself, but on the form, style, and openness of government.  Its role, perhaps at its most obvious, may be understood best from Watergate, in which President Nixon’s corruption and participation in illegal tampering with the Democratic Party was brought to light and forced his resignation.  We can say with great certainty that the only way Nixon resigns from office is because of the press.

So here’s the rub: the dramatic shift toward globalization in the last twenty years was the inevitable response to the steady drumbeat of deregulation and corporate infatuation that has dominated the Western world since the 19^th Century.  So we have economic entities operating on a global scale, wholly unregulated and unrestricted by individual countries and local communities, because we have not only allowed them to, but we have actually encouraged them to.  Every time a corporation relocates its “headquarters” to the Caymans, we say: “Buy their stock!  It’s about to soar!”

And despite the conspiracy fears about the United Nations and the European Union from the fringe, globalization isn’t happening in that same way politically, or in the form of governments.  Where we do see it, is the relative impunity many countries are now able to act throughout the world, most especially the United States.  Political globalization isn’t found in the creation of a single government, but in military excursions in countries on the other side of the globe.  It is titanically different for the United States to send soldiers and munitions to Europe in the World Wars than it is to actually wage war on a different continent or to hold multiple conflicts simultaneously.  And when we take into the shear volume of wars, taking place on five different continents in that time—3 in the last half century—it is impossible for us to suggest that the United States is not operating as a globalized military.

And yet, there is no globalized news organization; at least according to our traditional standards.  The Associated Press and the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) may well be considered that way.  And yet, they still lock themselves and the very way they operate to the nation-states they come from.  The Associated Press still brings American news, or world news to America.  It is filtered through an American lens.

If we take for a moment, my previous description of the Press and applied it to the notion of globalization, then we recognize the place Wikileaks is operating: as the only true globalized Press.  Puritans and purists will quibble about the subject matter and its general lack of traditional reporting and use these as arguments against it—to discredit it or dismiss it; just as a tyrannical king would do so to the pamphleteer or a cunning president would to a libelous media baron.  And yet, because there are no longer any checks to balance our mega-corporations and government, short of the threat of total economic collapse or nuclear annihilation, a new globalized press has surfaced.  Its headquarters is in a country with little press and media regulation (as corporations seek out similar financial and environmental “stewards”) and its participants, contributors, and readers/viewers are all over the world.  Even the legal troubles of the site and the site’s founder, Julian Assange, regardless of their truth, serve more as an attack on a news source that reveals secrets that governments don’t like, than they are actively seeking justice.

Wikileaks is the next evolution of media.  If you ideologically support globalization, then get behind it and encourage others to make the same step.  If you still want national control, or fear an unfettered press, then get behind more corporate regulations, anti-trust lawsuits against hundreds of mega-corporations, and labor unions, because we need a check to this kind of power.  The playing field is now a whole lot bigger.

NOTE: don’t forget to check out #Wikileaks on twitter

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