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Of course they do. Bias is expected. Media should generally disclose any biases and conflicts of interest. Generally to be taken seriously as a media outlet, th

by jmyeet 3y ago

Of course they do. Bias is expected. Media should generally disclose any biases and conflicts of interest. Generally to be taken seriously as a media outlet, they should try to avoid bias as much as possible. The Economist, for example, is a pro-Europe, pro-NATO, neoliberal publication. Bias can take many forms. The choice of what you cover, the choice of what you don't cover, the language you use (eg passive vs active voice), not questioning certain sources (eg being a steganopgrapher for a particular spokesperson), the timing of a story and so on. Wikileaks described itself as "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking". So choosing what to publish and when to publish it undermines that claim. What then distinguishes Julian Assange from Alex Jones?

skissane 3y ago
> Of course they do. Bias is expected. So Assange as a journalist isn't doing anything fundamentally different from NYT, WaPo, WSJ, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, etc > Wikileaks described itself as "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking". So choosing what to publish and when to publish it undermines that claim. I think Wikileaks was always going to exercise some discretion about what leaks it published. For example, suppose someone sent it a hospital's medical records database. I expect they would have looked at that and said "we aren't publishing this" - because it would have been a massive invasion of privacy of random private individuals with no public interest to justify it. Just like "real journalists" - there is some responsibility to determine what should be published and what should not be. And, just like "real journalists", sometimes that responsibility gets clouded by political bias. > What then distinguishes Julian Assange from Alex Jones? Assange published real secret government documents. Alex Jones just completely made stuff up, e.g. "School shootings are faked by the government". That's a massive difference.

by jmyeet 3y ago

skissane 3y ago

> Of course they do. Bias is expected. So Assange as a journalist isn't doing anything fundamentally different from NYT, WaPo, WSJ, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, etc > Wikileaks described itself as "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking". So choosing what to publish and when to publish it undermines that claim. I think Wikileaks was always going to exercise some discretion about what leaks it published. For example, suppose someone sent it a hospital's medical records database. I expect they would have looked at that and said "we aren't publishing this" - because it would have been a massive invasion of privacy of random private individuals with no public interest to justify it. Just like "real journalists" - there is some responsibility to determine what should be published and what should not be. And, just like "real journalists", sometimes that responsibility gets clouded by political bias. > What then distinguishes Julian Assange from Alex Jones? Assange published real secret government documents. Alex Jones just completely made stuff up, e.g. "School shootings are faked by the government". That's a massive difference.