wikileaks

[philthy05]

While we’re here it’s probably worth remembering that exactly 0 people saw jail time for an American gunship gunning down a Rueters cameraman , 2 civilians and shooting and injuring children after the military initially covered it up when Reuters came asking what happened and then gave it the all clear “they followed rules of engagement” after the video came out.

 

[Festerz]

Does that extend to the media? I watched SEVEN's drawn out coverage of Assange's arrival in Australia and he was constantly referred to as a journalist.

You are right - Assange is not a journalist.......in a traditional sense anyway. But so what?

But I think what the media is referring to here is what is regarded by his supporters the threat to journalism posed by his persecution and imprisonment for publishing official and embarrassing material provided to him from unofficial sources (most notably former US soldier and activist/whistleblower Chelsea Manning who was released from prison for her 'espionage' activities back in 2017) which were subsequently confirmed as accurate by US State Dept.

The publication of official documents (including secret documents) has been something that respected media outlets (including the New York Times and Washington Post) has done frequently for national interest reasons (eg. the Pentagon Papers leaked by Daniel Ellsberg).

Regardless of your personal opinion on what Assange did and why, the treatment of WikiLeaks and its founder by the US Government and its intelligence agencies has always struck me as not just hypocritical but far more dangerous to the public than what Assange did.

BTW, while Washington has often called Assange's actions reckless and claimed they put its agents at risk, the judge who released Assange from custody this week noted that the United States could not identify any personal victim from them.
"There's another significant fact - the government has indicated there is no personal victim here. That tells me the dissemination of this information did not result in any known physical injury," the judge said.

 

[raptalia]

Cool. Not sure what that’s got to do with my 12yr old post which had nothing to do with proclaiming Assange was a journo or that he’s of good personal character?





Tho while we’re on the subject I’m not sure we want to classify a journalist based on the metrics you provided. What passes as journalism today? Is someone with a degree and a paid role at a mega-corporation more deserving cause they retweet Kendrick Lamar cause it drives traffic to the site so they can sell more ads to McDonald’s? Eh.

Fair enough, I did not look at the date but the relevance is still there a decade later. I prefer to stick with the traditional definition of journalist and I put cyber publishers like Assagne in the same grouping as 'influencers'.

All of the attention in the Assagne / Wikileaks affair has been about what Assagne leaked not about how he got the information. Assagne is a convicted hacker and I have no time for hackers as they cause untold disruption in our lives. There is a lot more to Julian Assagne than being a victim and I hope that now he is back in Australia he stays out of trouble. I wonder if Anthony Albanese bothered to get a background briefing on Julian Assagne before he decided to take the credit for getting him back to Australia? If Assagne gets up to his old tricks Albanese, Wong and Rudd might be looking for somewhere to hide.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Fairly balanced assessment on Assange last Monday night on Media Watch by Paul Barry.

I was expecting the love fest to continue. Nice pointing out by Barry of some decent political hypocrisy. Assange story from start to 10.20 minute mark.