When announcing its partner relationships for "Syria Files," WikiLeaks initially included The Associated Press among them; it subsequently announced that it had no advance agreement with The AP. No major American media were therefore partnered for the "Syria Files" release.
In a story dated July 8, 2012, two days after "Syria Files" was published, Al- Akhbar confirmed that the emails released were genuine and the identities of those named in them accurate. Translating from Arabic, Wikipedia quotes the Lebanese paper saying the documents "illuminateoften in small waysthe nature of power within and the inner workings of certain political and economic elements in Syria." The link to this story no longer functions.
Ignored by Media
Coverage of "Syria Files" in the Western press was sparse in comparison with earlier WikiLeaks releases, reflecting the media's newly critical views of WikiLeaks and its founder. Those outlets covering the Syria release reported it in muted tones and without much detail.
The BBC noted simply, "Some stories which have already appeared seem to concern communications between Syrian representatives and Western suppliers of equipment that could be used for military purposes." The Daily Telegraph focused on the revelations concerning Finmeccanica, Brown Lloyd James, and other Western companies.
One exception among American media was The Daily Dot, a liberal news website founded in Austin, Texas, in 2011. In September 2016, it reported that WikiLeaks excluded email indicating the Syrian central bank transferred more than a à "š ¬2 billion to VTB Bank, a Russian institution. The Daily Dot cited U.S. court documents it obtained "through an anonymous source." The news site did not provide a link to the email in question; nor did it state the date it was written.
The Daily Dot's implication was that WikiLeaks intentionally kept the relevant messages out of "Syria Files" because they concerned two nations the U.S. considers adversaries.
"One set of emails in particular didn't make it into the cache published by WikiLeaks in July 2012 as 'The Syria Files,'" the news site reported, "despite the fact that the hackers themselves were ecstatic at their discovery." As this statement indicates, The Daily Dot's case rested on innuendo and the flawed assumption that WikiLeaks had obtained the email in question.
While it is true "Syria Files" did not include the email cited, The Daily Dot neglected to note that WikiLeaks never claimed "Syria Files" included all emails sent and received between the dates the publication covered.
WikiLeaks said in response that The Daily Dot's story "is speculation and is false." A spokesperson added,
"The release includes many emails referencing Syrian-Russian relations. As a matter of longstanding policy we do not comment on claimed sources. It is disappointing to see Daily Dot pushing the Hillary Clinton campaign's neo-McCarthyist conspiracy theories about critical media."
The Daily Beast appears to have been the only publication to report The Daily Dot's article. But the piece stands as exemplary of the unbalanced coverage of WikiLeaks and its publications that was by this time prevalent in U.S. and many other Western media.
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