Someone has left a comment beneath Journalism.co.uk’s article looking at the Telegraph’s transparency over MPs’ expenses. They suggest that a member of staff at the Telegraph uploads the original data to Wikileaks.org. It’s probably unlikely to happen.
What has happened is this: following Gordon Brown’s promise last week, the speaker’s office yesterday confirmed that details of MPs’ expenses will be released tomorrow (Thursday), on the parliament website. Official, but edited.
“The Daily Telegraph obtained a copy of the unedited expenses details and has been publishing extracts since the beginning of May.
“Attention on Thursday is likely to focus on how much damaging information would have been ‘redacted’ and hidden from the public if the Telegraph had not got hold of the details.”
WelshBlogger leaves this comment beneath the Guardian article:
“The ‘official’ one will be sanitised. I’ll only believe the Telegraph version. We, all, owe them a debt of gratitude. Why didn’t the Guardian do it?”
Will we ever see the unedited Telegraph version so we can compare the two? And compare the data with the stories generated by news organisations? Time will tell. WikiLeaks’ editor, Julian Assange, thinks it should be publicly archived information.
The Guardian, as WelshBlogger points out, didn’t get the data. It has, however, plotted information obtained via the Telegraph’s stories, in a spreadsheet.