Project Week-Snowden leaks

I have chosen the news about the leaks from Edward Snowden. There are different opinions on whether the Guardian should publish leaks by Mr Snowden. On the other hand, there are lots of debates in the Hong Kong media on whether the Hong Kong government should grant political asylum to Mr Snowden.

With reference to different media in Hong Kong, there are several impression based on the political stand of different press. One of the newspapers which is usually on the government side stresses in an article about the ways which is the most beneficial to the China government but do not have much focus on some deeper issue like the intention of Snowden, the relationship between the States and China etc.

Based on the UK media, we can see there are lots of different opinions upon this issue. The Guardian emphasis the responsibility to disclose information that affects the public while some other media which support the Conservative party keeps arguing the national security and the risk of providing chance for terrorist to attack the country. In an article about an interview with Mr Snowden conducted by the Guardian, I got an impression that it focuses on a particular angle by quoting Mr Snowden’s wordings which emphasize the good intention and aim of disclosing those leaks. It really provides me an impression that Mr Snowden is doing the correct and righteous things.
However, when I read some other articles such as The Telegraph, more information about the consequences of the leaking is mentioned and this make me think more and in a wider picture.

For me, the BBC seems cover more aspect about the issues. It quoted what Sir David, the former head of the UK’s communications surveillance center GCHQ saying that ‘ You have to distinguish between the original whistle-blowing intent to get a debate going, which is responsible thing to do, and the stealing of 58,000 top-secret British security documents and who knows how many American documents, which is seriously, seriously damaging.’  In my opinion, this helps to led reader to think more about the issue instead of focusing on one particular angle.

To conclude, some of the news article did confuse me in some way. The media do use lots of facts (i.e.: direct quote from the interviewer said). However, I think it is the arrangement of information that matters. Even though there are lots of facts, but if the facts are based on one particular side, objectivity is still not attained despite authenticity is achieved.

Sara, Lai Wing Tung