Open Secrets: Wikileaks,
War and America
Global Investigative
Journalism Conference
Kiev 2011
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Andrew W. Lehren
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The Afghanistan War Logs
First brought in for what was, at first blush, a
one-day story focusing on war dead and
possibly other issues related to the war
Obtained the raw data and began, over the
Fourth of July weekend, writing a series of
story memos
The one story we could not do with this data
was count war dead
Another important problem: informants are
named
But these documents tell us important
aspects of the war: drones gone wrong, the
ISI in Afghanistan, shadowy Task Force 373
and capture/kill operations
The New York Times secretly forms a team of
reporters from its bureaus around the world to
examine the documents
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Collaborating with the Guardian and Der
Spiegel
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Comparing with other databases about the
war, experience in the field and other ways of
cross-checking and verifying information
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Always aware these were daily field reports
rarely revised later
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Key approach: Pulling material from various
reports to tell a larger story
The Iraq War Logs: Combining other data sets
The diplomatic cables
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Often similar to well-written excellent single-source stories
Incomplete
Crossing international borders
Often the most common passages were useless
Sometimes a single cable told the whole story
Sometimes the best came from cables spanning the globe
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North Korean arms deals
Gitmo detainee efforts
DEA intelligence gathering efforts
Diplomats helping Boeing vs. Airbus
Guantanamo and beyond