4 ms·

Assange is not a journalist.

twawaaay 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalist "A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public." I am aware of the new trend that you can will things into and out of existence, but I do not subscribe to it.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Sorry, the corrected definition of Journalist involves disseminating the correct type of information.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    And we understand that's a vague definition, which is why in 2025 we will be issuing licenses for journalists, and ticketing people who report without a license.
    - stefantalpalaru 4y ago
- bdg 4y ago
  I highly suspect the poster you were responding to was more likely upset with the concept of journalistic integrity and being unbiased, not a definition of the job. I don't think this is a very large leap to make given the context and generally popular narrative around this topic.
  - twawaaay 4y ago
    The problem with this is who and at what point is deciding it. There is a lot of people who would like to mark certain journalists as not journalists because they just don't like what they publish. Freedom of speech requires that people are allowed speech and THEN and only then may be responsible for its contents.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    Many people think Assange "stopped being a journalist" when he seemingly sided with Hillary Clinton's opponent (after Hillary Clinton joked about murdering Assange.) Anyway, anybody who expects a journalist to be unbiased is utterly clueless. And anybody who expects a journalist to like a politician who hates him is being willfully idiotic. If any politician wished you dead, you would be rationally compelled to oppose that politician no matter how shitty their opponent was.
    - monetus 4y ago
      > If any politician wished you dead, you would be rationally compelled to oppose that politician no matter how shitty their opponent was. Selectively releasing information is what destroyed the goodwill he had with many. Providing an opportunity for a dangerous legal precedent on top of being a royal asshole politically; I think that he has, very indirectly, taken on some Thomas Midgley-like qualities.
      - philippejara 4y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean by "being a royal asshole politically". And yes, i'm pretty sure gp knows what destroyed his good-will with many, everyone knows, that doesn't mean it's his fault that the vultures are making an opportunity out of it. If having a right as a journalist is only contingent on you not giving opportunities for those rights to be taken away you don't really have it. I do wonder however how things would look if he leaked the other way around, especially now that the american left has been morphed into the same warhawks from the bush era and pretty much rolled back the entire public perception grounds gained regarding government surveillance after the NSA leaks. This whole misinformation hysteria has just given them an excuse to implement patriot act v2 lite, and worst of all it's being exported and done with a heavier hand internationally in places where you don't have the first amendment.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  TIL I learned I am a journalist (:
- ABeeSea 4y ago
  He did not “process them into a news-worthy form.”
  - twawaaay 4y ago
    So you say that a person who publishes recording of a public figure taking a bribe is not a journalist because they did not process it -- the material itself was news-worthy already and so because they didn't have to do anything they can't label themselves a journalist? I think if the material is news-worthy in its original form (like a recording of a public figure taking a bribe) you don't need to process it before publishing and certainly doing it is not a requirement.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      That wasn't what he did though. Assange just dumped a bunch of material, much of it not newsworthy.
      - twawaaay 4y ago
        It made the news, and not just the fact of the dump happening but also individual documents from the dump. And how is dumping documents different from publishing raw video and letting it speak for itself?
        kube-system 4y ago
        Yes, some journalists processed his raw dumps of data, and posted the newsworthy parts. The part where he didn't do that is the part where he doesn't meet the above definition.
      - denton-scratch 4y ago
        Assange placed an encrypted dump on the internet. Luke Harding and The Guardian published the key to that dump in a book. The dump contained information that placed individuals at risk; Assange made the information public as quickly as he could, so that affected individuals could take protective measures. Luke Harding and The Guardian were responsible for exposing the data, not Assange. They betrayed him, and they still haven't admitted it. They were supposedly collaborating with him (also Spiegel and NYT). I still don't know what happened at that time; MI5 came to the Guardian offices with Dremels and angle grinders to pulverize a laptop, in an obvious piece of theatre. Shortly after, the editor-in-chief (Alan Rusbridger) resigned and was replaced by a lightweight. The full truth will come out sooner or later.
- booleandilemma 4y ago
  If I steal money out of your bank account and donate it to the Red Cross, does that make me charitable?
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Asssange behaved nothing like other journalists by encouraging and participating in taking classified information and publishing it unfiltered in bulk. Whether he matches the legal definition of the press is a matter of judgement. He was, in my opinion very reckless with information with minimal benefit to the public and many of his actions don’t deserve constitutional protection.
encryptluks2 4y ago
The leaks were certainly useful..
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
But he didn't published anything, that's what so great about Snowden's story. He shared documents with journalists and let them chose if it was worth publishing, and moral to do so. He worked in the way the system was supposed to work.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  You don't need some special government certification or corporate media job to be a journalist, do you? And why should 'responsible journalists' be the only ones who get to look at spuriously classified documents? We all know that over-classification with the goal of hiding corruption or incompetence is very common. A journalist may need a reputation to be taken as a reliable source of information... but I don't believe WikiLeaks has had to retract any documents as fake, unlike say, the New York Times on the claims of Iraqi WMDs, or dozens of other examples over the years by 'leading corporate media outlets'.
  - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
    That's the whole purpose of journalism: look at facts, analyse, report to the public, and balance other powers in place. What did you think journalist were for, repeating gov and companies press conferences? For once the system has been used as it's supposed to, and it has never been more criticized.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      Are you replying to the right comment? I have no idea what this is supposed to be an answer to or a comment on, and I have no idea what system you think is working, or who you think has the authority to assign journalists a "purpose."
- pessimizer 4y ago
  The way the system is supposed to work is a desperate run from US authorities, ending up trapped in a country that the US is hostile to? Sounds like Snowden and Assange did it the same way.
macinjosh 4y ago
Yes. He. Is. Anyone with an Internet connection can be journalist today. Keep up.
rbanffy 4y ago
latchkey 4y ago
Now I'm curious. What is your definition of a journalist?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalist "A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public." I am aware of the new trend that you can will things into and out of existence, but I do not subscribe to it.

bombcar 4y ago
Sorry, the corrected definition of Journalist involves disseminating the correct type of information.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pessimizer 4y ago
  And we understand that's a vague definition, which is why in 2025 we will be issuing licenses for journalists, and ticketing people who report without a license.
  - stefantalpalaru 4y ago
bdg 4y ago
I highly suspect the poster you were responding to was more likely upset with the concept of journalistic integrity and being unbiased, not a definition of the job. I don't think this is a very large leap to make given the context and generally popular narrative around this topic.
- twawaaay 4y ago
  The problem with this is who and at what point is deciding it. There is a lot of people who would like to mark certain journalists as not journalists because they just don't like what they publish. Freedom of speech requires that people are allowed speech and THEN and only then may be responsible for its contents.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Many people think Assange "stopped being a journalist" when he seemingly sided with Hillary Clinton's opponent (after Hillary Clinton joked about murdering Assange.) Anyway, anybody who expects a journalist to be unbiased is utterly clueless. And anybody who expects a journalist to like a politician who hates him is being willfully idiotic. If any politician wished you dead, you would be rationally compelled to oppose that politician no matter how shitty their opponent was.
  - monetus 4y ago
    > If any politician wished you dead, you would be rationally compelled to oppose that politician no matter how shitty their opponent was. Selectively releasing information is what destroyed the goodwill he had with many. Providing an opportunity for a dangerous legal precedent on top of being a royal asshole politically; I think that he has, very indirectly, taken on some Thomas Midgley-like qualities.
    - philippejara 4y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean by "being a royal asshole politically". And yes, i'm pretty sure gp knows what destroyed his good-will with many, everyone knows, that doesn't mean it's his fault that the vultures are making an opportunity out of it. If having a right as a journalist is only contingent on you not giving opportunities for those rights to be taken away you don't really have it. I do wonder however how things would look if he leaked the other way around, especially now that the american left has been morphed into the same warhawks from the bush era and pretty much rolled back the entire public perception grounds gained regarding government surveillance after the NSA leaks. This whole misinformation hysteria has just given them an excuse to implement patriot act v2 lite, and worst of all it's being exported and done with a heavier hand internationally in places where you don't have the first amendment.
throwaway894345 4y ago
TIL I learned I am a journalist (:
ABeeSea 4y ago
He did not “process them into a news-worthy form.”
- twawaaay 4y ago
  So you say that a person who publishes recording of a public figure taking a bribe is not a journalist because they did not process it -- the material itself was news-worthy already and so because they didn't have to do anything they can't label themselves a journalist? I think if the material is news-worthy in its original form (like a recording of a public figure taking a bribe) you don't need to process it before publishing and certainly doing it is not a requirement.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    That wasn't what he did though. Assange just dumped a bunch of material, much of it not newsworthy.
    - twawaaay 4y ago
      It made the news, and not just the fact of the dump happening but also individual documents from the dump. And how is dumping documents different from publishing raw video and letting it speak for itself?
      - kube-system 4y ago
        Yes, some journalists processed his raw dumps of data, and posted the newsworthy parts. The part where he didn't do that is the part where he doesn't meet the above definition.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      Assange placed an encrypted dump on the internet. Luke Harding and The Guardian published the key to that dump in a book. The dump contained information that placed individuals at risk; Assange made the information public as quickly as he could, so that affected individuals could take protective measures. Luke Harding and The Guardian were responsible for exposing the data, not Assange. They betrayed him, and they still haven't admitted it. They were supposedly collaborating with him (also Spiegel and NYT). I still don't know what happened at that time; MI5 came to the Guardian offices with Dremels and angle grinders to pulverize a laptop, in an obvious piece of theatre. Shortly after, the editor-in-chief (Alan Rusbridger) resigned and was replaced by a lightweight. The full truth will come out sooner or later.
booleandilemma 4y ago
If I steal money out of your bank account and donate it to the Red Cross, does that make me charitable?
colechristensen 4y ago
Asssange behaved nothing like other journalists by encouraging and participating in taking classified information and publishing it unfiltered in bulk. Whether he matches the legal definition of the press is a matter of judgement. He was, in my opinion very reckless with information with minimal benefit to the public and many of his actions don’t deserve constitutional protection.

encryptluks2 4y ago

The leaks were certainly useful..

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

But he didn't published anything, that's what so great about Snowden's story. He shared documents with journalists and let them chose if it was worth publishing, and moral to do so. He worked in the way the system was supposed to work.

photochemsyn 4y ago
You don't need some special government certification or corporate media job to be a journalist, do you? And why should 'responsible journalists' be the only ones who get to look at spuriously classified documents? We all know that over-classification with the goal of hiding corruption or incompetence is very common. A journalist may need a reputation to be taken as a reliable source of information... but I don't believe WikiLeaks has had to retract any documents as fake, unlike say, the New York Times on the claims of Iraqi WMDs, or dozens of other examples over the years by 'leading corporate media outlets'.
- BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  That's the whole purpose of journalism: look at facts, analyse, report to the public, and balance other powers in place. What did you think journalist were for, repeating gov and companies press conferences? For once the system has been used as it's supposed to, and it has never been more criticized.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Are you replying to the right comment? I have no idea what this is supposed to be an answer to or a comment on, and I have no idea what system you think is working, or who you think has the authority to assign journalists a "purpose."
pessimizer 4y ago
The way the system is supposed to work is a desperate run from US authorities, ending up trapped in a country that the US is hostile to? Sounds like Snowden and Assange did it the same way.

macinjosh 4y ago

Yes. He. Is. Anyone with an Internet connection can be journalist today. Keep up.

rbanffy 4y ago

latchkey 4y ago

Now I'm curious. What is your definition of a journalist?