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This is not intended as a shot, but you just did by saying classifying Assange as 'someone accused of political crime'. I guess my general point is that it obvi

This is not intended as a shot, but you just did by saying classifying Assange as 'someone accused of political crime'. I guess my general point is that it obviously can be done, but pre-ordained agenda seems to be clogging basic language faculties of people who live by the printed word.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Assange's alleged crimes are not political.
- ajross 4y ago
  To pick just one incident: He's alleged to have selectively released information specifically to damage the Clinton campaign, and at a time where a Trump scandal was at the top of the news. That's not really even very arguable. To believe that Wikileaks release was non-political just strains reason. Clearly the Podesta emails were released for political purposes. You have an easier time arguing that it's not a crime. Certainly the Podesta hack itself was a crime, but it's plausible that Assange merely got the emails after the fact and published them because they were newsworthy. That's... pretty arguable, but it's at least an argument. Broadly... I just don't see the bias here. Assange is credibly accused of political crimes. Stating so isn't "bias", it's just describing a reasonably held opinion. That it isn't your opinion isn't the point.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > To pick just one incident: He's alleged to have selectively released information specifically to damage the Clinton campaign, and at a time where a Trump scandal was at the top of the news. Maybe pick an incident that he's charged with? > You have an easier time arguing that it's not a crime. Especially since nobody has claimed that this is a crime, and he's never been charged with it. You're spreading misinformation in order to justify the prosecution of a journalist.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Nothing could be more political than an accusation of aiding a soldier in avoiding detection while exfiltrating video evidence of a war atrocity.
slg 4y ago
>This is not intended as a shot, but you just did by saying classifying Assange as 'someone accused of political crime'. I'm confused what you mean here and whether you are saying I used biased or unbiased phrasing. If you are saying it was biased, why was my comment neutral when the original "Julian Assange is possibly a criminal." was not? If what I said was biased, how would you describe the fact that he has been accused of crimes? I'm not asking rhetorical questions here. I'm challenging people to write an unbiased version of that original paragraph. I don't think it can be done. We can't address "Americans Lost Faith in the News" without being honest that this ideal of a universally agreed upon unbiased reporting of facts isn't truly possible.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  I apologize. I am mid other things and I clearly typed too fast without considering clarity. What I meant is that the sentence you wrote was sufficiently neutral in tone along the lines of 'this guy accused of a political crime.' << why was my comment neutral when the original "Julian Assange is possibly a criminal." was not? I think the issue is with the context. Would you be willing to rewrite the paragraph written by article's author, because you may be right in a sense that it is hard to judge it based on that one sentence fragment alone? My initial response is that the article pushes a clear agenda vis-a-vis Assange even though it seems to have a tenuous connection to the point author seems to be trying to make. So initial difference is there ( possibly criminal vs guy accused of crime reads very differently ) and it is hard to argue in good faith for an entity with a lot of editors no one thought that may read a tad biased. All that said, my own personal bias may be showing here, but then I am not sure Assange was obligated to keep that information secret -- whatever else you may think about qualitative goodness/badness of that action. Naturally that leaves 'hacking' angle, but I will admit I did not follow story closely enough to offer a useful analysis. edit: "Yet journalists are quick to defend anyone who uncovers and disseminates information" I am starting to think you may be right in general. This paragraph cannot be rewritten in an impartial manner, because it is at its core very partial. It is arguing with anti-Assange bias in mind.
  - slg 4y ago
    > Would you be willing to rewrite the paragraph written by article's author, because you may be right in a sense that it is hard to judge it based on that one sentence fragment alone? No, because I don't think I can do better than the original author. >I am starting to think you may be right in general. This paragraph cannot be rewritten in an impartial manner, because it is at its core very partial. It is arguing with anti-Assange bias in mind. I don't think the paragraph is necessarily "arguing with anti-Assange bias in mind". It is remarking on a world which has an anti-Assange bias because many powerful people in the world, namely the US government, view Assange negatively. How do you report on that without either repeating or refuting that bias in the world? Maybe a less controversial figure is a better example of this. The FBI monitored MLK Jr. That is just a fact. How do you remark on that fact neutrally? The FBI as an institution has some inherent level of trust. Reporting simply that they monitored MLK implies to a certain extent that he was implicated in some wrongdoing. Do you therefore try to qualify that? Do you say the monitoring was "inappropriate"? Is that too strong? Doesn't that imply that the FBI is racist or corrupt? Do you say it was "potentially inappropriate"? But doesn't that imply you think it might be appropriate? I don't think the objective reporting of facts is nearly as easy as people seem to imply in conversations about media and in many cases it is impossible.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

Assange's alleged crimes are not political.

ajross 4y ago
To pick just one incident: He's alleged to have selectively released information specifically to damage the Clinton campaign, and at a time where a Trump scandal was at the top of the news. That's not really even very arguable. To believe that Wikileaks release was non-political just strains reason. Clearly the Podesta emails were released for political purposes. You have an easier time arguing that it's not a crime. Certainly the Podesta hack itself was a crime, but it's plausible that Assange merely got the emails after the fact and published them because they were newsworthy. That's... pretty arguable, but it's at least an argument. Broadly... I just don't see the bias here. Assange is credibly accused of political crimes. Stating so isn't "bias", it's just describing a reasonably held opinion. That it isn't your opinion isn't the point.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > To pick just one incident: He's alleged to have selectively released information specifically to damage the Clinton campaign, and at a time where a Trump scandal was at the top of the news. Maybe pick an incident that he's charged with? > You have an easier time arguing that it's not a crime. Especially since nobody has claimed that this is a crime, and he's never been charged with it. You're spreading misinformation in order to justify the prosecution of a journalist.
pessimizer 4y ago
Nothing could be more political than an accusation of aiding a soldier in avoiding detection while exfiltrating video evidence of a war atrocity.

slg 4y ago

>This is not intended as a shot, but you just did by saying classifying Assange as 'someone accused of political crime'. I'm confused what you mean here and whether you are saying I used biased or unbiased phrasing. If you are saying it was biased, why was my comment neutral when the original "Julian Assange is possibly a criminal." was not? If what I said was biased, how would you describe the fact that he has been accused of crimes? I'm not asking rhetorical questions here. I'm challenging people to write an unbiased version of that original paragraph. I don't think it can be done. We can't address "Americans Lost Faith in the News" without being honest that this ideal of a universally agreed upon unbiased reporting of facts isn't truly possible.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
I apologize. I am mid other things and I clearly typed too fast without considering clarity. What I meant is that the sentence you wrote was sufficiently neutral in tone along the lines of 'this guy accused of a political crime.' << why was my comment neutral when the original "Julian Assange is possibly a criminal." was not? I think the issue is with the context. Would you be willing to rewrite the paragraph written by article's author, because you may be right in a sense that it is hard to judge it based on that one sentence fragment alone? My initial response is that the article pushes a clear agenda vis-a-vis Assange even though it seems to have a tenuous connection to the point author seems to be trying to make. So initial difference is there ( possibly criminal vs guy accused of crime reads very differently ) and it is hard to argue in good faith for an entity with a lot of editors no one thought that may read a tad biased. All that said, my own personal bias may be showing here, but then I am not sure Assange was obligated to keep that information secret -- whatever else you may think about qualitative goodness/badness of that action. Naturally that leaves 'hacking' angle, but I will admit I did not follow story closely enough to offer a useful analysis. edit: "Yet journalists are quick to defend anyone who uncovers and disseminates information" I am starting to think you may be right in general. This paragraph cannot be rewritten in an impartial manner, because it is at its core very partial. It is arguing with anti-Assange bias in mind.
- slg 4y ago
  > Would you be willing to rewrite the paragraph written by article's author, because you may be right in a sense that it is hard to judge it based on that one sentence fragment alone? No, because I don't think I can do better than the original author. >I am starting to think you may be right in general. This paragraph cannot be rewritten in an impartial manner, because it is at its core very partial. It is arguing with anti-Assange bias in mind. I don't think the paragraph is necessarily "arguing with anti-Assange bias in mind". It is remarking on a world which has an anti-Assange bias because many powerful people in the world, namely the US government, view Assange negatively. How do you report on that without either repeating or refuting that bias in the world? Maybe a less controversial figure is a better example of this. The FBI monitored MLK Jr. That is just a fact. How do you remark on that fact neutrally? The FBI as an institution has some inherent level of trust. Reporting simply that they monitored MLK implies to a certain extent that he was implicated in some wrongdoing. Do you therefore try to qualify that? Do you say the monitoring was "inappropriate"? Is that too strong? Doesn't that imply that the FBI is racist or corrupt? Do you say it was "potentially inappropriate"? But doesn't that imply you think it might be appropriate? I don't think the objective reporting of facts is nearly as easy as people seem to imply in conversations about media and in many cases it is impossible.