{"id":169541,"date":"2020-09-28T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=169541"},"modified":"2020-09-28T06:58:43","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T05:58:43","slug":"julian-assange-press-shows-little-interest-in-media-trial-of-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/09\/julian-assange-press-shows-little-interest-in-media-trial-of-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Julian Assange: Press Shows Little Interest in Media \u2018Trial of Century\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo of protester at Julian Assange\u2019s extradition hearing that appeared in El Pa\u00eds (9\/10\/20).<\/p><\/div>\n

25 Sep 2020 – <\/em>Labeled<\/a> the media \u201ctrial of the century,\u201d WikiLeaks<\/b> founder Julian Assange\u2019s extradition hearing is currently taking place in London\u2014although you might not have heard if you\u2019re relying solely on corporate media for news. If extradited, Assange faces 175 years in a Colorado supermax prison<\/a>, often described<\/a> as a \u201cblack site\u201d on US soil.<\/p>\n

The United States government is asking Britain to send the Australian publisher to the US to face charges under the 1917 Espionage Act.\u00a0 He is accused of aiding and encouraging Chelsea Manning to hack a US government computer in order to publish hundreds of thousands of documents detailing American war crimes, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. The extradition, widely viewed<\/a> as politically motivated, has profound consequences<\/a> for journalists worldwide, as the ruling could effectively criminalize the possession of leaked documents, which are an indispensable part of investigative reporting.<\/p>\n

WikiLeaks<\/b> has entered into partnership with five high-profile outlets around the world: the New York Times<\/b>, Guardian <\/b>(UK), Le Monde<\/b> (France), Der Spiegel<\/b> (Germany) and El Pa\u00eds<\/b> (Spain). Yet those publications have provided relatively little coverage of the hearing.<\/p>\n

Since the hearing began on September 7, the Times<\/b>, for instance, has published only two bland news articles (9\/7\/20<\/a>, 9\/16\/20<\/a>)\u2014one of them purely about the technical difficulties in the courtroom\u2014along with a short rehosted AP<\/b> video (9\/7\/20<\/a>). There have been no editorials and no commentary on what the case means for journalism. The Times<\/b> also appears to be distancing itself from Assange, with neither article noting that it was one of WikiLeaks<\/b>\u2019 five major partners in leaking information that became known as the CableGate scandal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Guardian:<\/p>\n

Guardian<\/strong> columnist Hadley Freeman (9\/9\/20<\/a>) turned a reader\u2019s question about \u201cliv[ing] in a time of so much insecurity<\/strong>\u201d into a bizarre rant against Julian Assange and his partner, Stella Moris.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Guardian<\/b>, whose headquarters are less than two miles from the Old Bailey courthouse where Assange\u2019s hearing is being held, fared slightly better in terms of quantity, publishing eight articles since September 7. However, perhaps the most notable content came from columnist Hadley Freedman (9\/9\/20<\/a>).<\/p>\n

When asked in an advice article: \u201cWe live in a time of so much insecurity. But is there anything we can expect from this increasingly ominous-looking winter with any certainty?\u201d she went on a bizarre tangential rant ridiculing the idea that Assange\u2019s trial could possibly be \u201cpoliticized,\u201d also crassly brushing off the idea that his young children would never see their father again, and never answering anything like the question she was asked. Holding people to account \u201cfor a mess they could have avoided,\u201d she notes, \u201cis not \u2018weaponizing\u2019 anything \u2014 it is just asking them to do their jobs properly.\u201d She also claimed that believing Assange\u2019s trial was politicized was as ridiculous as thinking antisemitism claims were cynically weaponized<\/a> against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, which, she meant to suggest, was a preposterous idea. This was not an off-the-cuff remark transcribed and published, but a written piece that somehow made it past at least one editor.<\/p>\n

Like the Times<\/b>, the Guardian<\/b> appeared to be hoping to let people forget the fact it built its worldwide brand off its partnership with WikiLeaks<\/b>; it was only mentioned in a forthright op-ed by former Brazilian president Lula da Silva (9\/21\/20<\/a>), an outlier piece.<\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/b> should be taking a particularly keen role in the affair, seeing that two of its journalists are alleged by WikiLeaks<\/b> to have recklessly and knowingly disclosed<\/a> the password to an encrypted file containing a quarter-million unredacted WikiLeaks<\/b> documents, allowing anyone\u2014including every security agency in the world\u2014to see an unredacted iteration of the leak. In 2018, the Guardian<\/b> also falsely reported that Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort had conducted a meeting with Assange and unnamed \u201cRussians\u201d at the Ecuadorian embassy (FAIR.org<\/b>, 12\/3\/18<\/a>). And, as former employee Jonathan Cook noted<\/a>, the newspaper is continually being cited by the prosecution inside the courtroom.<\/p>\n

\"Der<\/p>\n

Der Speigel\u2019s headline (9\/7\/20<\/a>) reads: \u201cMaximum Sentence: 175 Years in Prison.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

There were only two articles in the English or French versions of Le Monde<\/b> (9\/7\/20<\/a>, 9\/18\/20<\/a>) and only one in either of Der Spiegel<\/b>\u2019s English or German websites (9\/7\/20<\/a>), although the German paper did at least acknowledge its own partnership with Assange. There was no coverage of the hearings in El Pa\u00eds<\/b>, in English or Spanish, though there was a piece (9\/10\/20<\/a>) about the US government thwarting a Spanish investigation into the CIA spying on Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London\u2014accompanied by a photo of a protester against his extradition.<\/p>\n

The rest of corporate media showed as little interest in covering a defining moment in press freedom. There was nothing at all from CNN<\/b>. CBS<\/b>\u2019s two articles (9\/7\/20<\/a>, 9\/22\/20<\/a>) were copied and pasted from news agencies AP<\/b> and AFP<\/b>, respectively. Meanwhile, the entire sum of MSNBC<\/b>\u2019s coverage amounted to one unclear sentence in a mini news roundup article (9\/18\/20<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Virtually every relevant human rights and press freedom organization is sounding the alarm about the incendiary precedent this case sets for the media. The Columbia Journalism Review<\/b> (4\/18\/19<\/a>), Human Rights Watch<\/a> and the Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a> note that the government includes in its indictment regular journalistic procedures, such as protecting sources\u2019 names and using encrypted files\u2014meaning that this \u201chacking\u201d charge could easily be extended to other journalists. Trevor Timm, founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told<\/a> the court this week that if the US prosecutes Assange, every journalist who has possessed a secret file can be criminalized. Thus, it essentially gives a carte blanche to those in power to prosecute whomever they want, whenever they want, even foreigners living halfway around the world.<\/p>\n

The United Nations has condemned<\/a> his persecution, with Amnesty International describing<\/a> the case as a \u201cfull-scale assault on the right to freedom of expression.\u201d Virtually every story of national significance includes secret or leaked material; they could all be in jeopardy under this new prosecutorial theory.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump has continually fanned the flames, demonizing<\/a> the media as the \u201cenemy of the people<\/a>.\u201d Already 26% of the country (including 43% of Republicans) believe<\/a> the president should have the power to shut down outlets engaging in \u201cbad behavior.\u201d A successful Assange prosecution could be the legal spark for future anti-journalistic actions.<\/p>\n

Yet the case has been met with indifference from the corporate press. Even as their house is burning down, media are insisting it is just the Northern Lights.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Alan MacLeod is an academic and journalist. He is a staff writer at<\/em> Mintpress News and a contributor to <\/em>Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting –FAIR<\/a>. He is the author of<\/em> Bad News from Venezuela<\/a>: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 Sep 2020 – Labeled the media \u201ctrial of the century,\u201d WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange\u2019s extradition hearing is currently taking place in London\u2014although you might not have heard if you\u2019re relying solely on corporate media for news. If extradited, Assange faces 175 years in a Colorado supermax prison, often described as a \u201cblack site\u201d on US soil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":169542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[229,918,910,942,487,378,651,234,911,454,572,639,292,70,126,921,113],"class_list":["post-169541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-activism","tag-assange","tag-big-brother","tag-ecuador","tag-human-rights","tag-journalism","tag-justice","tag-media","tag-surveillance","tag-sweden","tag-torture","tag-uk","tag-un","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-whistleblowing","tag-wikileaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}