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Comment by ionfish | Hacker News Reader

I thought links to sources were preferred over blogs regurgitating them? It would have been just as easy to simply link to the Guardian article [1]. Supposedly this is related to their reporting on the oil company Trafigura's alleged cover-up of intentional pollution in west Africa.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/12/guardian-gagged-...

[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/16/trafigura-oil-iv...

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Well as the guardian is prevented from publishing the question it probably makes sense to link to someone who can tie up the whole story...

In which case pointing the story link at wikileaks which carries the report, the MPs question and a link to the Guardian "we're gagged" story would have been best.

You mean rather like this blog does... ;)

Sorry I don't mean to "fight" over it but the Spectator is press as well.

They're still a secondary source, regardless of how well they happen to be credentialed.

As is Wikileaks

Wikileaks is a provider of primary sources, like any good historical archive. In this case it's providing a PDF of the Minton report. The summary Wikileaks provide is, of course, a secondary source, but people are linking to the page because it hosts the PDF, not because it happens to summarise the contents of the report and its historical context.

The Guardian, reporting on the Trafigura case, are a secondary source (when referencing the report), and a primary source when writing about the gagging order that has been applied to them. The Spectator blog article is a secondary source writing about the gagging order. These distinctions are standard in both historiography and journalism.

The Spectator's press too - it's more or less Time with a PhD and a serious crush on Thatcherism.

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