4 ms·

Simpler explanation. This was an interesting case when he was trapped in the embassy, police waited outside, and stories came out about his cat pooping everywh

Simpler explanation. This was an interesting case when he was trapped in the embassy, police waited outside, and stories came out about his cat pooping everywhere. Easy to understand and fascinating to read about. Now it is a mundane series of legal events with no final conclusion as of yet. Even these articles that are upvoted to the front page about Assange consistently have to attack the US media to get traction on HN. It's not interesting by itself to people without them getting to be mad at the media.

mandmandam 5y ago
Nothing mundane about this. And the msm deserves every last drop of vitriol they get over this. Their deliberate and abject failure to put this into context for people results in comments like yours.
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  The hatred for "main stream media" quickly outpaced its usefulness very early on. The media do a bad job of a lot of things, but the undeserved portion of spite has now caused much more harm (both real and in the form of information noise) than good (in the form of enlightenment or exposure). Hatred for the main stream media is now more often than not just a way of rationalizing one's political side-taking. I think there's a fair share of that in this case. I don't necessarily agree 100% with the parent, but their point is totally valid. Look at how hostile your tone is.
  - naasking 5y ago
    > but the undeserved portion of spite has now caused much more harm (both real and in the form of information noise) than good (in the form of enlightenment or exposure). Why is it undeserved if they haven't changed their partisan tactics and misleading reporting despite all hate levelled at them for exactly these things?
  - fragileone 5y ago
    Except they still lie constantly and clearly that message hasn't sunk in if HN commenters such as yourself still defend them. The days of non-partisan, non-clickbait and thoroughly researched journalism is long over, yet many still don't hold them to the same standards they would to any blog. It causes "harm" to call out their lies? Get real, they've fanned the flames for riots and other political violence for years now and that's far more harmful than calling them terrible for doing so.
  - rajin444 5y ago
    Unfortunately I think that hatred also caused otherwise rational people to place more faith than should be in the media - likely those that are on the other side of the political side taking you mention. “My tribal out group strongly dislikes the media and I need to align as opposite from them as I can rationalize”.
  - rualca 5y ago
    > Hatred for the main stream media is now more often than not just a way of rationalizing one's political side-taking. I don't know where you are from, but in every country I ever lived it was readily apparent that their mainstream media is tasked with pushing the status quo, muzzle dissenting points of view and opinions, and persecute inconvenient political targets. It boggles the mind the amount of cognitive dissonance that is rewired to simultaneously acknowledge private companies can easily manipulate the media to further their propaganda goals, but somehow deny political regimes do the same. In Assange's case, it was readily apparent from the start that the accusations were a ruse to persecute and punish inconvenient voices under the excuse of a carefully fabricated accusation that was intended to be hard to defend on moral grounds.
  - weeblewobble 5y ago
    I think you're onto something here. I can't find the link but in the early 2000s blog-era there was a blog about how media criticism is a low form of argument. Media criticism is easy, it doesn't require any particular expertise or research, and it has broad appeal. It's also rather thin gruel. It generally relies on a sort of sleight-of-hand where you imply the media (or the mainstream media) is a single entity and define away counterexamples.
marcus_holmes 5y ago
It should be interesting. It's such a blatant perversion of justice. We should be mad at everyone involved, not just the media for not covering it. I'm ashamed of a lot of things my country (UK) has done. But this is the latest. We should be better than this.

mandmandam 5y ago

Nothing mundane about this. And the msm deserves every last drop of vitriol they get over this. Their deliberate and abject failure to put this into context for people results in comments like yours.

happytoexplain 5y ago
The hatred for "main stream media" quickly outpaced its usefulness very early on. The media do a bad job of a lot of things, but the undeserved portion of spite has now caused much more harm (both real and in the form of information noise) than good (in the form of enlightenment or exposure). Hatred for the main stream media is now more often than not just a way of rationalizing one's political side-taking. I think there's a fair share of that in this case. I don't necessarily agree 100% with the parent, but their point is totally valid. Look at how hostile your tone is.
- naasking 5y ago
  > but the undeserved portion of spite has now caused much more harm (both real and in the form of information noise) than good (in the form of enlightenment or exposure). Why is it undeserved if they haven't changed their partisan tactics and misleading reporting despite all hate levelled at them for exactly these things?
- fragileone 5y ago
  Except they still lie constantly and clearly that message hasn't sunk in if HN commenters such as yourself still defend them. The days of non-partisan, non-clickbait and thoroughly researched journalism is long over, yet many still don't hold them to the same standards they would to any blog. It causes "harm" to call out their lies? Get real, they've fanned the flames for riots and other political violence for years now and that's far more harmful than calling them terrible for doing so.
- rajin444 5y ago
  Unfortunately I think that hatred also caused otherwise rational people to place more faith than should be in the media - likely those that are on the other side of the political side taking you mention. “My tribal out group strongly dislikes the media and I need to align as opposite from them as I can rationalize”.
- rualca 5y ago
  > Hatred for the main stream media is now more often than not just a way of rationalizing one's political side-taking. I don't know where you are from, but in every country I ever lived it was readily apparent that their mainstream media is tasked with pushing the status quo, muzzle dissenting points of view and opinions, and persecute inconvenient political targets. It boggles the mind the amount of cognitive dissonance that is rewired to simultaneously acknowledge private companies can easily manipulate the media to further their propaganda goals, but somehow deny political regimes do the same. In Assange's case, it was readily apparent from the start that the accusations were a ruse to persecute and punish inconvenient voices under the excuse of a carefully fabricated accusation that was intended to be hard to defend on moral grounds.
- weeblewobble 5y ago
  I think you're onto something here. I can't find the link but in the early 2000s blog-era there was a blog about how media criticism is a low form of argument. Media criticism is easy, it doesn't require any particular expertise or research, and it has broad appeal. It's also rather thin gruel. It generally relies on a sort of sleight-of-hand where you imply the media (or the mainstream media) is a single entity and define away counterexamples.

marcus_holmes 5y ago

It should be interesting. It's such a blatant perversion of justice. We should be mad at everyone involved, not just the media for not covering it. I'm ashamed of a lot of things my country (UK) has done. But this is the latest. We should be better than this.