The press wikileaks was getting before Assange emerged from behind the curtain was far better than it is now. They seemed poised to become the reuters/AP of primary source data. Now that seems almost impossible.
Unintentional irony? Both of those organizations' reputations have become quite tarnished. They are certainly not contemporary bastions of fair-handed transparency -- witness Reuters' photo manipulation and AP's quote-whoring.
No organization is 100% perfect, but AP/Reuters is a far cry from wikileaks in terms of journalistic integrity. Did you read the New Yorker profile on Assange? He doesn't even claim to be objective. He talked about selecting audio for the "collateral murder" clips to maximize emotional impact.
I was of course using them as examples of a reference news service or the closest thing we have one in this age. Wikileaks was in a position to become such an institution. One that no one could ignore. That does not seem very likely anymore.
