Well, we always wanted stories from data: now we've got it. In spades. With bells on. The Wikileaks' Afghanistan war logs are a fantastic victory for investigative data-based journalism, not only here at the Guardian but at the New York Times and Der Spiegel too.It's also datajournalism in action. What we wanted to do was enable our team of specialist reporters to get great human stories from the information - and we wanted to analyse it to get the big picture, to show how the war really is going. It's been a busy month for those of us who work with data at the Guardian; this is how we got here.
Well, we always wanted stories from data: now we've got it. In spades. With bells on. The Wikileaks' Afghanistan war logs are a fantastic victory for investigative data-based journalism, not only here at the Guardian but at the New York Times and Der Spiegel too.
It's also datajournalism in action. What we wanted to do was enable our team of specialist reporters to get great human stories from the information - and we wanted to analyse it to get the big picture, to show how the war really is going.
It's been a busy month for those of us who work with data at the Guardian; this is how we got here.
Tensions between the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan were further strained today after the leak of thousands of military documents about the Afghan war.As members of the US Congress raised questions about Pakistan's alleged support for the Taliban, officials in Islamabad and Kabul also traded angry accusations on the same issue.Further disclosures reveal more evidence of attempts by coalition commanders to cover up civilian casualties in the conflict.The details emerge from more than 90,000 secret US military files, covering six years of the war, which caused a worldwide uproar when they were leaked yesterday.The war logs show how a group of US marines who went on a shooting rampage after coming under attack near Jalalabad in 2007 recorded false information about the incident, in which they killed 19 unarmed civilians and wounded a further 50.
Tensions between the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan were further strained today after the leak of thousands of military documents about the Afghan war.
As members of the US Congress raised questions about Pakistan's alleged support for the Taliban, officials in Islamabad and Kabul also traded angry accusations on the same issue.
Further disclosures reveal more evidence of attempts by coalition commanders to cover up civilian casualties in the conflict.
The details emerge from more than 90,000 secret US military files, covering six years of the war, which caused a worldwide uproar when they were leaked yesterday.
The war logs show how a group of US marines who went on a shooting rampage after coming under attack near Jalalabad in 2007 recorded false information about the incident, in which they killed 19 unarmed civilians and wounded a further 50.
Barack Obama today said the disclosures about the mishandling of the Afghanistan war contained in leaked US military documents justified his decision to embark on a new strategy.Speaking on the White House lawn after a meeting with Congressional leaders to discuss funding for the war and other issues, the US president deplored the leak, saying he was concerned the information from the battleground could jeopardise the lives of US soldiers.But he went on to say that the material, which catalogues a series of blunders, revealed the challenges that led him to announce late last year a change in strategy that involved sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
Barack Obama today said the disclosures about the mishandling of the Afghanistan war contained in leaked US military documents justified his decision to embark on a new strategy.
Speaking on the White House lawn after a meeting with Congressional leaders to discuss funding for the war and other issues, the US president deplored the leak, saying he was concerned the information from the battleground could jeopardise the lives of US soldiers.
But he went on to say that the material, which catalogues a series of blunders, revealed the challenges that led him to announce late last year a change in strategy that involved sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
the information from the battleground could jeopardise the lives of US soldiers.
Not nearly as much as being there for no reason does in the first place.
Buried among the 92,000 classified documents released Sunday by WikiLeaks is some intriguing evidence that the U.S. military in Afghanistan has adopted a PR strategy that got it into trouble in Iraq: paying local media outlets to run friendly stories. Several reports from Army psychological operations units and provincial reconstruction teams (also known as PRTs, civilian-military hybrids tasked with rebuilding Afghanistan) show that local Afghan radio stations were under contract to air content produced by the United States. Other reports show U.S. military personnel apparently referring to Afghan reporters as "our journalists" and directing them in how to do their jobs.Such close collaboration between local media and U.S. forces has been a headache for the Pentagon in the past: In 2005, Pentagon contractor the Lincoln Group was caught paying Iraqi newspapers to run stories written by American soldiers, causing the United States considerable embarrassment.
Buried among the 92,000 classified documents released Sunday by WikiLeaks is some intriguing evidence that the U.S. military in Afghanistan has adopted a PR strategy that got it into trouble in Iraq: paying local media outlets to run friendly stories.
Several reports from Army psychological operations units and provincial reconstruction teams (also known as PRTs, civilian-military hybrids tasked with rebuilding Afghanistan) show that local Afghan radio stations were under contract to air content produced by the United States. Other reports show U.S. military personnel apparently referring to Afghan reporters as "our journalists" and directing them in how to do their jobs.Such close collaboration between local media and U.S. forces has been a headache for the Pentagon in the past: In 2005, Pentagon contractor the Lincoln Group was caught paying Iraqi newspapers to run stories written by American soldiers, causing the United States considerable embarrassment.
