Al-Akhbar/Wikileaks: A postscript. The limits of journalism.

On the 1st of December, a Syrian worker was shot by Lebanese police dressed in civilian clothes in the early hours of the morning. The murder happened in Hamra, a residential and commercial district of Beirut that is popular with tourists and locals alike. The incident received little coverage in the media, with the exception of Al-Akhbar newspaper which published detailed coverage of the circumstances of the murder and placed it prominently on its digital version. Two things conspired to keep the story from receiving the attention that it deserved: the fact that the victim Abdel Nasser Ahmad was Syrian and Al-Akhbar’s publication of the leaked cables from several Arab countries which dominated the news.