No sooner had the momentous news broken that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had struck a deal with the United States, pleading guilty to its trumped-up charges in return for freedom, than the toads in the old corporate media started croaking.
The spiteful nonentities who populate the pages of Murdoch’s propaganda rags and the drivellers at the Financial Review were perhaps first off the mark in the chorus of croakers, complaining that Assange wasn’t a “real journalist” (as if these gutless toadlets would know one if they saw one) and implying that he deserved his imprisonment and torture. Their comments are mere rhetoric, and empty rhetoric at that, with no more evidence to back them than the US had to support its spurious and vindictive charges.
Julian Assange is a journalist. Measured by the importance of what he published, he is one of the best Australia has ever produced. The system he created – Wikileaks – permitted whistleblowers from all over the world to anonymously reveal terrible misdeeds by governments and corporations that people interested in freedom and truth had every right to know about. But in the increasingly authoritarian climate of the modern world, such a system was a nightmare for those with the most to hide. That’s why the United States pulled every string in the book to pervert the judicial processes of Sweden and the UK and why it effectively bribed the government of Ecuador to get Assange where it could slowly destroy him.
Apart from inventing a new type of journalism and embarrassing many organisations with appalling revelations of which the famous “Collateral murder” video was only one, Assange also showed up much of the mainstream corporate media establishment as supine, dishonest, cowardly and spiteful apologists for the powerful interests whose misdeeds Wikileaks exposed.
A towering figure in journalism
Don’t listen to the croakers. They are irrelevant blots on pitiful pages. Julian Assange is a towering figure in journalism against whose achievements those of the croakers amount to less than zero.
Here’s what real journalists have to say about Assange and Wikileaks. Australia’s journalists’ union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) issued a statement in response to the news of Assange’s impending release declaring that:
“The work of Wikileaks at the centre of this case – which exposed war crimes and other wrongdoing by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan – was strong, public interest journalism” and that: “The espionage charges laid against Assange were a grotesque overreach by the US government and an attack on journalism and media freedom.” “The stories published by WikiLeaks and other outlets more than a decade ago were clearly in the public interest. The charges by the US sought to curtail free speech, criminalise journalism and send a clear message to future whistleblowers and publishers that they too will be punished.” His work was “clearly in the public interest and it has always been an outrage that the US government sought to prosecute him for espionage for reporting that was published in collaboration with some of the world’s leading media organisations.” “Julian Assange has been a member [of the MEAA] since 2007 and in 2011 WikiLeaks won the Outstanding Contribution to Journalism Walkley award, one of Australia’s most prestigious journalism awards.“
At that time, the Walkley Award panel acknowledged Assange’s achievements in journalism, which had released what they described as “an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup”’ The award read:
“This year’s winner has shown a courageous and controversial commitment to the finest traditions of journalism: justice through transparency. WikiLeaks applied new technology to penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup. Its revelations on how the war on terror was being waged, to diplomatic bastardry, high-level horse-trading and the interference in the domestic affairs of nations, have had an undeniable impact.
Julian Assange and Wikileaks have won more than 20 significant awards for journalism and public advocacy. More than all the tame toads croaking from the corporate songbooks of Murdoch and his dismal ilk can hope to aspire to. You won’t read about his awards in the dismal swamp sheets, so here’s some links to find out more:
Günter Wallraff Prize 2022 goes to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange
PEN Norway awards Julian Assange the Ossietzky Prize for 2023
Julian Assange wins EU journalism award
Depend on this. In the days and weeks to come, the establishment media will pump out stories discrediting Assange. They will resort to ad hominem attacks. They will promulgate unprovable tales of people having been killed as a result of Wikileaks publications. They will unleash all the venom of which toads in chorus are capable. Ignore them. They are corporate apologists, whose pens are at the service of the highest bidders, generating thickets of lies and half-truths as they toady to their moneyed masters.
In the matter of journalism, Assange puts them all in the shade.
If you think I might be off the mark in my defence of Julian Assange, you might want to order a copy of this book by former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer. A thorough book by an honest reporter that will help abolish any doubts.
