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The Wikileaks release of a huge trove of diplomatic cables
on Sunday, November 28, 2010 caused a great stirring of
media interest and political activity. The revelations of backroom
dealing and unflattering personal commentary at high levels
of international communication have been the subject of
great concern. The US State Department went into damage
control mode, with calls to colleagues all around the world.
As Kirsten Neiling, who hosts an Egg in Argentina put it, "I
wonder what will the EGGs show now with the Wikileaks. I
believe the world will never be the same after this. The changes
are upon us at full scale and at a high speed."
We don't have an exact time for the release, but Kirsten
noted that the cables were first provided to European newspapers: The
Guardian, Le Monde, El Mundo, Der Spiegel. The material went also to
the New York times, and Wikileaks indicates there will be
much more to come. In any case, the first materials were
published on the 28th, probably in morning editions.
Apparently, there was knowledge within the State Department
prior to the publication, as indicated by descriptions of
negotiations and pressure to mitigate harms to people in
sensitive positions.
The GCP event was set for 8 hours beginning at 07:00 UTC, to
cover the first publication in Europe as well as the major early
reactions in the US. The results show Chisquare of 29085.274
on 28800 df, for p = 0.118 and Z = 1.188.
It is important to keep in mind that we have only a tiny
statistical
effect, so that it is always hard to distinguish signal from
noise. This means that every "success" might be largely
driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real
signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect
can
be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of
similar analyses.
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