The Evolving Newsroom

Back on the investigative journalism theme, this Editors Weblog post (based on a stronger Wired story) looks at Wikileaks, the document-leaking website set up to "help journalists change the world" according to its founder Julian Assange.

Wikileaks has been responsible for the leaking of several major news stories: the U.S. military's operating manuals for its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay; lists of U.S. munitions in Iraq; reports of the looting of Kenya by former president Daniel Arap Moi.

For investigative journalists, this powerful new resource has the potential to provide an endless stream of stories. Assange is beginning to tweak Wikileaks to better accommodate journalists, pre-releasing selected documents to reporters. He is also considering making Wikileaks a subscription service for journalists.

The site has so far survived legal assaults and temporary setbacks including having been taken offline. There's some interesting background on Wikipedia and the Wired story has a good wrap. You can easily lose a couple of hours wandering around the site itself and I recommend having a look at the Media Kit page for some useful links.