Yeah it's exactly the realistic perception that is often hard to nail objectively as we ourselves get info from biased media to begin with. My specific route was with WikiLeaks (though you probably guessed so), and I chose it exactly because most of WikiLeak's controvacies ended up pretty well. A recent example actually was not too long ago when Snowden published a book on how he hesitated a lot at the time, yet his decision actually turned out pretty well.
Now of course we should consider this stuff on a case by case basis, often with complex risk analysis but I guess that's why it's hard to nail.
I know it can be hard, but thanks for a least trying to make this less political =]