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> The real journalists are the ones being demonized by the media and government alike (that's how you know they're reporting something actually being hidden awa
by txcwpalpha 9y ago
> The real journalists are the ones being demonized by the media and government alike (that's how you know they're reporting something actually being hidden away from the people), some of whom are living out their lives locked up in embassies.
There's a subtle implication here that the likes of Julian Assange are "real journalists" and are somehow noble, which is laughable. Assange (and WikiLeaks) have just as much political alignments and motives that all other media organizations have. Just because he's stuck in an embassy and doesn't have hordes of cash behind him doesn't mean he isn't just as biased.
Quite frankly, WikiLeaks as a whole is no more trustworthy than CNN or Fox, and may be even less so. One of the most powerful (and hard to detect) ways to be biased in reporting isn't by printing attack articles against your enemy, but rather by not printing attack articles against your "friends". WikiLeaks does this every time they choose not to publish evidence damning people they support, which I'd be willing to bet happens more often than we all know.
While we're on the topic, WikiLeaks also commits some pretty atrociously biased editorializing whenever they post new material. They used to just be a site that posted raw information ("here are the emails that were leaked"), but now they also add their own silly commentary to it ("here are the emails and this is what you should think about them"), often with hilariously bad analysis.
- mi100hael 9y ago> WikiLeaks does this every time they choose not to publish evidence damning people they support, which I'd be willing to bet happens more often than we all know. I'd bet it doesn't happen all that frequently. If you were a source and Wikileaks refused to publish, wouldn't you just take your material elsewhere and make it known Wikileaks tried to squash a story?
- txcwpalpha 9y agoYou mean like this? http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/347007-wikileaks-rejected-documents-on-russia-during-2016-election http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/347007-wikileaks-rej... I only wonder how many times similar things happen but we don't hear about it because the source doesn't have the connections/credibility to make WikiLeaks' refusal known.
- norikki 9y agoIf it had been legitimate dirt on Russia or Trump, the NYT or Washington Post would have published it. That means this guy was attempting to discredit Wikileaks by passing them bogus intel like the "Trump dossier" mixed with already public info. Wikileaks made the right call, and you sound mad about it.
- Stanish 9y ago"An unidentified source told the hill"
- wolco 9y agoCNN and Fox news have accredited journalists. I'm not sure why you would group wikileaks which dumps data sometimes adds editorialized comments. Judging them on fair and balanced reporting misunderstands there role.
- norikki 9y agoYou totally missed his point. Wikileaks does not pretend to be unbiased. They are willing to speak truth to power whereas your "accredited journalists" do nothing but cower and cover up for it. Who do you think is paying for that accreditation? Middle class families or billionaires?
- StanislavPetrov 9y agoAccredited by who? A group of corporate employees pretending to be journalists handing each other accreditation is meaningless.
- adrianratnapala 9y agoThe nice thing about speech is that it doesn't really matter whether randoms on the web are reliable or noble. You can leave them alone anyway. (Julian Assange is not the best example of this though, because he seems to have done stuff wrong well outside of just what he publishes.)
- norikki 9y agoLike rape? I don't think so.
- boomboomsubban 9y agoSo Wikileaks posts their opinions along with the raw data, and you can imagine a scenario in which their biased, therefore Wikileaks is less trustworthy than CNN and Fox News. Imagine what kind of stories the networks could have, with their policies of inviting former government officials on to voice their opinions.
- yahna 9y agoPeople claim wikileaks to be unbiased, that's the difference.
- stale2002 9y agoFortunately, I can read wiki Leak's actual source documents and decide for myself what to believe. Their commentary on what they release is inconsequential. What matters is the actual, real, documents that they release.
- FilterSweep 9y agoLeak chooses which source documents to show you, therefore shifting the narrative you interpret.
- stale2002 9y agoFacts are facts and the truth is the truth. Nothing you said changes the reality that the documents are real. If other people have a different opinion on what the narrative should be then they should release documents of their own. But that still doesn't change the truth of the previous documents.
- txcwpalpha 9y agoJust because something is "real" doesn't mean you should blindly put your trust in it. Document 1 says: "President ABC bombed a school in Syria today, killing 50 people." Document 2 says: "This action was carried out after President ABC learned that the school was being used as a base for terrorists, and only terrorist combatants were killed during the bombing." Both documents are real, but only releasing document #1 and keeping document #2 secret is a very easy way to shift the narrative against President ABC.
- txcwpalpha 9y agoUnfortunately, this isn't true. It is not "inconsequential". Most people will read the headline/commentary and blindly trust it without reading the source material at all. This is a problem with the audience, yes, but it's also a problem with the organizations that take advantage of the audience. But even amongst those that do still read the source material, if they read the commentary beforehand they are still likely to have their perception influenced a certain way, even if only subconsciously. Psychological priming is a thing.