Big news of the day is how "a huge cache of secret US military files" provides a "devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan". They have been obtained by the "whistleblowers' website" Wikileaks in what is described as "one of the biggest leaks in US military history."
The files have been made available to The Guardian, The New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, with The Guardian in particular, pushing the boat out, running multiple stories and linking to the files.
But do we see here, or in The Independent, or even in The Daily Telegraph - which also features the files – any suggestion that they are stolen?
Largely, is seems they have been "revealed" or "leaked" and the contents "disclosed". But nowhere do I see the word "stolen" – so far. How so very different this is, then, from the treatment of the "Climategate" files, which had the media, and especially the left wing press, spluttering in its muesli.
We even had The Times report that: "UN officials have likened the theft of e-mails from university climate researchers to the Watergate scandal, " and that was after them claiming that "computer hackers were probably paid by people intent on undermining the Copenhagen summit."
Thus, whatever the merits or otherwise of "release" of the "war logs", as The Guardian is calling them, the difference in treatment is quite remarkable. Some might even call it hypocrisy.
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