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A Pentagon official, in the story, is cited saying, "Even three months later the US military still had no evidence that people had died or been harmed because of information gleaned from Wikileaks documents." Despite that, the frame for discussion ever since individuals like Sen. Mitch McConnell began to refer to Assange as an "information terrorist" has been whether Assange is a journalist or a terrorist. Media have been largely incapable of any nuance. Either Assange is being discussed as terrorist or he is being discussed as being a journalist, as if this is a reasonable either/or hypothesis to pose.
The discrediting of Assange as a journalist is important for a press whose traditions are threatened by the fact that WikiLeaks has had such a profound impact on journalism. That it is the first "stateless news organization," as NYU professor and press critic Jay Rosen has said, and is the first organization that can truly make a promise with whistleblowers not to reveal who sent the organization information so they can be protected from going to jail is a threat to a news media that considers itself to be savvy and capable of steering public opinion. The material WikiLeaks releases strikes blows at the media's coziness with government and exposes how deferential they are to the US government.
Keep in mind the value of WikiLeaks, as a conduit for information, depends on the inability of news media to cover stories and conduct real investigative journalism. The more CNN and other organizations put resources into word clouds, giant graphic charts, holograms to prop up Election Night coverage and gimmicks like "Reporter Roulette," "Random Moment of the Day" and their "Stream Team," which The Daily Show recently covered, the more valuable WikiLeaks becomes.
The more US cable news networks and newspapers rely on user-generated material from Twitter,
Facebook and YouTube to pad its coverage of the US and the world instead of investing in getting people
to US states or foreign countries to cover news, the more indispensable WikiLeaks is for the
world's citizens. The less resources it puts into efforts to get Freedom of
Information Act requests approved so people can know the truth about
government officials worldwide, the less time it makes prodding government officials for answers, the more accepting the world becomes of WikiLeaks.
Kevin Zeese, with the Bradley Manning Support Network and WikiLeaksisDemocracy.org, recently wrote a widely read op-ed on the Internet that detailed how WikiLeaks is at the forefront of journalism. He quoted Jeff Jarvis of the City University of New York, who has said:
"We in journalism must recognize that WikiLeaks is an element of a new ecosystem of news. It is a new form of the press. So we must defend its rights as media. If we do not, we could find our own rights curtailed. Asking whether WikiLeaks should be stopped is exactly like asking whether this newspaper should be stopped when it reveals what government does not want the public to know. We have been there before; let us never return."
Journalists in US media, however, do not see themselves as watchdogs anymore. They view themselves as people who jump on the latest fads and trends in news and politics. They seem to think they are needed to unpack ideas and teach Americans how to think about issues and conflicts that are unfolding. They do not see it as their duty to challenge government with truth and they certainly do not view themselves as entities tasked with a duty to expose egregious abuses of law and power by government.
All of the attempts at character assassination have led many to suggest Assange needs to relinquish his position as a leader of WikiLeaks. But, Assange may be doing WikiLeaks a favor: so long as he is the one being smeared others in WikiLeaks are not and that gives WikiLeaks breathing room to continue to operate. But, more importantly, the organization will always need a spokesperson and, regardless of who it is, it seems reasonable that the nature of this organization will always invite people to try to attach labels to its leaders.
Is Julian Assange a sleazy anti-Semitic control freak who cannot take criticism and hates America and would like to do lasting damage to the US without regard for humanity, a philanderer who deserves the ire of the Humane Society for how he has treated animals and needs to take more showers and take care of his hygiene because he sometimes smells like a "bag lady"? A debate on an answer to that loaded question is as ridiculous and asinine as any discussion about UFO messages being transmitted by Julian Assange and yet the world can count on news organizations to continue to reprint attacks even as they use cables to inform their news reports on events unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa and rehash such gossip.
The media has exploited WikiLeaks and Assange, using them to produce material worthy of investigative news awards while at the same time engaging in near slander. The only way to insert
sanity into discussion of WikiLeaks and reduce the impact of tabloid gossip
bandied about my news media is to overlook it, have wide-ranging conversations
about how WikiLeaks is changing media and society and really dig into the
information it has released.
Update
Listen to episode four of a podcast I host called "This Week in WikiLeaks." Kevin Zeese, who is mentioned in this article, was the episode's guest.
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