Comment Journalism done right (Score 2) 211
I am a former Stratfor subscriber. At $99/year it was well worth it (but babies are expensive and now every 99 bucks count). I think the Stratfor readership is not stupid and know pretty well what they are getting for their dollars. I never expected any secret intelligence or detailed first hand reporting of currents events, just a good explanation on how these pieces might fit in the big picture. I need Stratfor because traditional media are failing me. They are too easily manipulated, too hard to read, too uninterested in he truth.
I follow Max Fisher and Dan Drezner, they are very readable, but limited. I follow the cool kids / IR superstars like Dan Trombly and Andrew Exum. They are very bright, but George Friedman is much more useful because he provides a very simple and coherent framework for understanding geopolitical events past and future. Sometimes he gets things wrong, sometimes spectacularly wrong, but over the years his views have mostly stood the test of time (even if Japan and the USA haven't gone to war yet).
This attack on Stratfor really changed my opinion about Anonymous and Wikileaks. The purported reasons for the attack are not believable. It is obvious to me that this is a failed (at least for now...) act of censorship and Anonymous / Wikileaks are a front to someone who isn't interested in having Stratfor's opinions and advice polluting the USA media consensus on some issue. Things may become clearer when/if other news organizations are attacked.
Interesting times.