6 ms·

I'm not sure if I buy this. Any sufficiently motivated leaker could just release to another source if wikileaks were blocking important information.

theCrowing 4y ago
It's not the blocking of information for what wikileaks is known...
dalbasal 4y ago
So, this doesn't settle anything but... If you listen to WikiLeaks people or the greater associated clique, I think it's clear that they're a politically oriented group. It's not a conventional/general journalistic ethos. More like a party publication. This is my opinion, and mostly based on speaking to people in Melbourne att of Assange's initial persecution. In any case, even if they were just motivated by not getting scooped, the actions stand.
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  lol “persecution”
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  > I think it's clear that they're a politically oriented group. It's not a conventional/general journalistic ethos The same goes for any journalistic outlet. It's not difficult to guess the political leanings of most New York Times journalists. Hello, 1619 Project!
  - lzooz 4y ago
    - mfer 4y ago
      Who gets to decide what’s good and wrong?
      - DonHopkins 4y ago
        The ones who don't violently storm the Capitol in an Insurrection (or incite it).
    - toofy 4y ago
      if a people holds certain actions to be reprehensible, then completely unironically, yes.
      - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
        Reprehensible actions like cheerleading the invasion of Iraq, as the New York Times did in 2002-2003?
        yks 4y ago
        People of the wrong political orientation are now cheerleading the Russians in their invasion of Ukraine, so they are bad regardless of their current position on Iraq of 2002. Wrong/bad because of the suffering brought to the world.
        lzooz 4y ago
        Wait you mean those who think the US should meddle with it right?
      - lzooz 4y ago
        Who decides what is reprehensible? Before you say "common sense" or "the Western global elites", think twice.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        toofy 4y ago
        > ...who decides... i do. you do. we do. im not sure what people are looking for when they ask this absurd question. while this may not be the case with you, i suspect its usually asked in bad-faith by people who are trying to insinuate that all actions are equally (non)reprehensible--which is of course, nonsense. we start with certain foundations, we hold that certain truths are self-evident. and we build from there. wHo dEcIdEs!?! we do.
  - dalbasal 4y ago
    I suppose your handle speaks to this but... No. I disagree. Not everything is the same because no one is perfect. There are differences of ethos. There are also hypocrisies, but that still doesn't get you to equivalence. If you have a negative opinion of the NYT, that's fine... but why would you even bother forming an opinion if they're all the same. In any case, if you do believe your own position... how does that change anything? Some people formed an opinion of WikiLeaks as an organisation by how they conducted themselves during an election. How does a more nihilistic attitude towards journalism generally supposed to affect that. This is just edgelord stuff. It doesn't lead anywhere. Has no conclusions or consequences beyond attitude.
    - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
      Ah right. Suddenly people no longer care about corruption, when the TV tells them THEIR person is running for office...
      - dalbasal 4y ago
        Sure. As I said, hypocrisy exists... by the bucketful. All I am saying is that things besides hypocrisy also exist and can play a role in the world.
    - quetzthecoatl 4y ago
      to sum up, political slant that aligns with your politics is good, the rest is bad/edgelord/nihilism. Everything else aside, if you just compare Nytimes and wikileaks, it's easy to see who the good guys are - the one who stood up against the biggest power in the history of mankind at immense personal and organizational cost vs the ones who perpetuated lies to support Iraq Wars, US sponsored Coups, Genocides. One siding with nytimes on his/her politics ignoring everything is on him/her. Maybe from US internal politics perspective Nytimes is the good guy, but for everyone else, they are absolutely the bad guys.
    - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
      The New York Times' political stances are just as obvious as those of WikiLeaks, and I say this as a long-time NY Times reader. I gave the 1619 Project as an example of how the Times' political biases shine through. It's a clear-cut case in which the Times ignored the objections of the actual experts on American history (including the historian they asked to fact-check the project, but also several heavyweights of American history, such as Gordon Wood and James McPherson), and published ideologically motivated, rubbish history. The way the Times then dismissed the criticisms of academic historians (the 1619 Project lead dismissed them as "white historians") left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. This was one of the Times' flagship projects, which they put on the cover of the paper and which they have heavily promoted since. > nihilistic attitude towards journalism I'm not nihilistic about journalism. The NY Times, despite its obvious political sympathies, is still a very useful source of information. So is WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks published some extremely important information that the public had a right to know. The value of WikiLeaks was that it did not have the same close relationship with the US government that the NY Times has, and that it was therefore more willing to publish material that would gravely embarrass the US government. To give you one such example of how the NY Times' relationship with the government compromises its journalism: the Times knew about Bush's unconstitutional warrantless wiretap program before the 2004 election. It refrained from publishing the story, at the request of the Bush administration. It was only when the journalist covering the story threatened to publish it by himself, outside the Times, that the Times finally decided to run it. That was a year after the Times found out. In other words, the Times withheld a major story during a Presidential election, because the President (who was also one of the candidates) claimed vague security concerns. WikiLeaks would not have withheld that story. That's the major difference between the Times and WikiLeaks - not that the Times is a bastion of political neutrality. Julian Assange has been sitting in prison in the UK for years, fighting extradition to the US, which wants to lock him up for 175 years. The suggestion that he's not a journalist, because he's politically outspoken, is one of the tactics the US political establishment has used to justify going after him.
  - unyttigfjelltol 4y ago
    journalism. noun. writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation --> this function is what makes "journalism" special and why excessive political leanings contaminate the enterprise. Publishing a website, having an audience, makes one a part of the mass media as compared to a journalist.
mcv 4y ago
What do you mean, you don't buy this? If whistleblowers need to look for another source, isn't that exactly the same as wikileaks losing support?
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  I believe they don't buy the "when they selectively leaked documents during election time" part, not the losing support part.

theCrowing 4y ago

It's not the blocking of information for what wikileaks is known...

dalbasal 4y ago

So, this doesn't settle anything but... If you listen to WikiLeaks people or the greater associated clique, I think it's clear that they're a politically oriented group. It's not a conventional/general journalistic ethos. More like a party publication. This is my opinion, and mostly based on speaking to people in Melbourne att of Assange's initial persecution. In any case, even if they were just motivated by not getting scooped, the actions stand.

birdyrooster 4y ago
lol “persecution”
DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
> I think it's clear that they're a politically oriented group. It's not a conventional/general journalistic ethos The same goes for any journalistic outlet. It's not difficult to guess the political leanings of most New York Times journalists. Hello, 1619 Project!
- lzooz 4y ago
  - mfer 4y ago
    Who gets to decide what’s good and wrong?
    - DonHopkins 4y ago
      The ones who don't violently storm the Capitol in an Insurrection (or incite it).
  - toofy 4y ago
    if a people holds certain actions to be reprehensible, then completely unironically, yes.
    - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
      Reprehensible actions like cheerleading the invasion of Iraq, as the New York Times did in 2002-2003?
      - yks 4y ago
        People of the wrong political orientation are now cheerleading the Russians in their invasion of Ukraine, so they are bad regardless of their current position on Iraq of 2002. Wrong/bad because of the suffering brought to the world.
        lzooz 4y ago
        Wait you mean those who think the US should meddle with it right?
    - lzooz 4y ago
      Who decides what is reprehensible? Before you say "common sense" or "the Western global elites", think twice.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - toofy 4y ago
        > ...who decides... i do. you do. we do. im not sure what people are looking for when they ask this absurd question. while this may not be the case with you, i suspect its usually asked in bad-faith by people who are trying to insinuate that all actions are equally (non)reprehensible--which is of course, nonsense. we start with certain foundations, we hold that certain truths are self-evident. and we build from there. wHo dEcIdEs!?! we do.
- dalbasal 4y ago
  I suppose your handle speaks to this but... No. I disagree. Not everything is the same because no one is perfect. There are differences of ethos. There are also hypocrisies, but that still doesn't get you to equivalence. If you have a negative opinion of the NYT, that's fine... but why would you even bother forming an opinion if they're all the same. In any case, if you do believe your own position... how does that change anything? Some people formed an opinion of WikiLeaks as an organisation by how they conducted themselves during an election. How does a more nihilistic attitude towards journalism generally supposed to affect that. This is just edgelord stuff. It doesn't lead anywhere. Has no conclusions or consequences beyond attitude.
  - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
    Ah right. Suddenly people no longer care about corruption, when the TV tells them THEIR person is running for office...
    - dalbasal 4y ago
      Sure. As I said, hypocrisy exists... by the bucketful. All I am saying is that things besides hypocrisy also exist and can play a role in the world.
  - quetzthecoatl 4y ago
    to sum up, political slant that aligns with your politics is good, the rest is bad/edgelord/nihilism. Everything else aside, if you just compare Nytimes and wikileaks, it's easy to see who the good guys are - the one who stood up against the biggest power in the history of mankind at immense personal and organizational cost vs the ones who perpetuated lies to support Iraq Wars, US sponsored Coups, Genocides. One siding with nytimes on his/her politics ignoring everything is on him/her. Maybe from US internal politics perspective Nytimes is the good guy, but for everyone else, they are absolutely the bad guys.
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    The New York Times' political stances are just as obvious as those of WikiLeaks, and I say this as a long-time NY Times reader. I gave the 1619 Project as an example of how the Times' political biases shine through. It's a clear-cut case in which the Times ignored the objections of the actual experts on American history (including the historian they asked to fact-check the project, but also several heavyweights of American history, such as Gordon Wood and James McPherson), and published ideologically motivated, rubbish history. The way the Times then dismissed the criticisms of academic historians (the 1619 Project lead dismissed them as "white historians") left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. This was one of the Times' flagship projects, which they put on the cover of the paper and which they have heavily promoted since. > nihilistic attitude towards journalism I'm not nihilistic about journalism. The NY Times, despite its obvious political sympathies, is still a very useful source of information. So is WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks published some extremely important information that the public had a right to know. The value of WikiLeaks was that it did not have the same close relationship with the US government that the NY Times has, and that it was therefore more willing to publish material that would gravely embarrass the US government. To give you one such example of how the NY Times' relationship with the government compromises its journalism: the Times knew about Bush's unconstitutional warrantless wiretap program before the 2004 election. It refrained from publishing the story, at the request of the Bush administration. It was only when the journalist covering the story threatened to publish it by himself, outside the Times, that the Times finally decided to run it. That was a year after the Times found out. In other words, the Times withheld a major story during a Presidential election, because the President (who was also one of the candidates) claimed vague security concerns. WikiLeaks would not have withheld that story. That's the major difference between the Times and WikiLeaks - not that the Times is a bastion of political neutrality. Julian Assange has been sitting in prison in the UK for years, fighting extradition to the US, which wants to lock him up for 175 years. The suggestion that he's not a journalist, because he's politically outspoken, is one of the tactics the US political establishment has used to justify going after him.
- unyttigfjelltol 4y ago
  journalism. noun. writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation --> this function is what makes "journalism" special and why excessive political leanings contaminate the enterprise. Publishing a website, having an audience, makes one a part of the mass media as compared to a journalist.

mcv 4y ago

What do you mean, you don't buy this? If whistleblowers need to look for another source, isn't that exactly the same as wikileaks losing support?

boomboomsubban 4y ago
I believe they don't buy the "when they selectively leaked documents during election time" part, not the losing support part.