This is an extraordinary moment for the Arab media. Gleeful anticipation that the latest revelations from Wikileaks would prove deeply embarrassing to the United States has suddenly turned into a realisation that the leaked documents (the first batch at least) portray various Arab leaders in a bad light – among other things, as duplicitous and cowardly in relation to Iran, urging the US to do their dirty work for them. 

Further murky goings-on involving Arab regimes are likely to emerge as people trawl through the welter of documents in more detail during the coming days and weeks.

In their content, the documents are not particularly earth-shattering; they merely confirm the impression that many people had of Arab leaders already. But what they have done – and this may be much more important in the long run – is to crash through the red lines and taboos that usually surround the discourse among Arabs about their leaders. Forget the customary mutterings behind closed doors; it's now there on Wikileaks, spelt out in black and white for anyone who cares to read it.

For journalists in the Arab countries this is a huge problem. Ignoring Wikileaks entirely is not a sensible option – the story is all over the internet anyway. But what can they report without getting into trouble? So far, the answer seems to be to report it selectively ... very selectively.

The Saudi-owned al-Arabiya, for instance, skims over the business of King Abdullah saying he wants the Americans to cut the head off the Iranian snake in a single sentence:

The cables also contained new revelations about long-simmering nuclear trouble spots, detailing US, Israeli and Arab world fears of Iran's growing nuclear program, American concerns about Pakistan's atomic arsenal and U.S. discussions about a united Korean peninsula as a long-term solution to North Korean aggression.

Marc Lynch, a leading commentator on the Arab media writes:

Thus far, most of the mainstream Arab media seems to be either ignoring the Wikileaks revelations or else reporting it in generalities, ie reporting that it's happening but not the details in the cables. I imagine there are some pretty tense scenes in Arab newsrooms right now, as they try to figure out how to cover the news within their political constraints.

Al-Jazeera may feel the heat the most, since not covering it (presumably to protect the Qatari royal family) could shatter its reputation for being independent and in tune with the "Arab street". So far, the only real story I've seen in the mainstream Arab media is in the populist Arab nationalist paper al-Quds al-Arabi, which covers the front page with a detailed expose focused on its bete noir Saudi Arabia. 

Meanwhile, the details are all over Arabic social media like Facebook and Twitter, blogs, forums, and online-only news sites like Jordan's Ammon News. This may be a critical test of the real impact of Arabic social media and the internet: can it break through a wall of silence and reach mass publics if the mass media doesn't pick up the story?

We may have to wait a while for the answer to that. But it won't be the last time that something of this kind happens, and Arab regimes (and the Arab media) will have to get used to it. As Amira Nowaira observed the other day in connection with Egypt: you can station troops along the ring roads, but you can't do the same on the information super-highway.