WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website at the centre of a storm over leaking 250,000 US diplomatic despatches, is a not-for-profit media organisation launched in 2007 with the professed goal of bringing "important news and information to the public".

WikiLeaks, which claims to provide "an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists" through its electronic drop box, has won a number of awards, including the 2008 Economist magazine's New Media Award.