{"id":170171,"date":"2020-10-12T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=170171"},"modified":"2020-10-09T06:53:39","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T05:53:39","slug":"none-of-it-reported-how-corporate-media-buried-the-assange-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/10\/none-of-it-reported-how-corporate-media-buried-the-assange-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018None of It Reported\u2019: How Corporate Media Buried the Assange Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

7 Oct 2020 – <\/em>One of the most imposing features of state-corporate propaganda is its incessant, repetitive nature. Over and over again, the \u2018mainstream\u2019 media have to convince the public that \u2018our\u2019 government prioritises the health, welfare and livelihoods of the general population, rather than the private interests of an elite stratum of society that owns and runs all the major institutions, banks, corporations and media.<\/p>\n

We are constantly bombarded by government ministers and their media lackeys telling us that \u2018our\u2019 armed forces require huge resources, at public expense, to maintain the country\u2019s \u2018peace\u2019 and \u2018security\u2019. We do not hear so much about the realpolitik of invading, bombing or otherwise \u2018intervening\u2019 in other countries with military force, diplomatic muscle, and bribes of trade and aid deals to carve up natural resources and markets for the benefit of a few.<\/p>\n

For those old enough to remember 2002-2003, who can forget the endless repeated rhetoric of the \u2018threat\u2019 posed by Iraq\u2019s Saddam Hussein, of how his \u2018weapons of mass destruction\u2019 could be launched within 45 minutes of his order, and how \u2018we\u2019 simply had to remove him from power? Or how, in 2011, the US, UK and France had to launch \u2018humanitarian intervention\u2019 to stop the \u2018mass slaughter\u2019 of civilians by Gaddafi\u2019s forces in Libya. And on and on.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the public is saturated by obsequious \u2018news\u2019 about the royal family, allowing for the odd scandal now and again, to convince us of their \u2018relevance\u2019, the \u2018great work\u2019 they do for the country, not least \u2018boosting the tourism industry\u2019, and their supposedly vital role in maintaining a \u2018stable society\u2019 steeped in tradition and rich history.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to arguably the most important political trial in our lifetimes, there is a not-so-curious media reluctance to dwell on it or even mention it, never mind grant it the kind of blanket coverage that celebrity trials regularly generate.<\/p>\n

Thus, media attention given to the extradition hearing of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and editor, was minimal and dwarfed by the coverage devoted to the actor Johnny Depp<\/a> over the summer.<\/p>\n

We monitored BBC News at Ten, the main evening BBC news programme on BBC1, during the four weeks of the Assange hearing. As far as we could tell, there was not a single substantive item (there may have been passing mention on the first day). We observed that the last time Paul Royall<\/a>, the editor of BBC News at Ten, had mentioned Assange in his daily tweets giving the running order for that evening\u2019s News at Ten was in November 2019<\/a>. We challenged Royall politely several times on Twitter, but received no response. We received the same non-response from deputy editor Lizzi Watson<\/a> and her colleague Jonathan Whitaker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We also challenged Daniel Sandford<\/a>, the BBC\u2019s home affairs correspondent whose remit, according to his Twitter bio, includes law.<\/p>\n

We asked<\/a> him:<\/p>\n

\u2018Hello @BBCDanielS<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018As Home Affairs Correspondent for @BBCNews<\/a>, where is your reporting of the #JulianAssange<\/a> extradition hearing?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To his credit, Sandford did at least respond, unlike the majority of his BBC colleagues in recent years. He told us<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018The case is being covered by our World Affairs unit. I have been in a few hearings, and it is slightly repetitive at the moment. It will return as a news story.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those words \u2013 \u2018slightly repetitive\u2019 \u2013 look destined to become Sandford\u2019s journalistic epitaph. Ironically, they have been endlessly repeated back to him by members of the public who were understandably incredulous, perplexed, irritated or even angry at his dismissive response to Assange\u2019s ordeal and the huge implications of the trial.<\/p>\n

We asked<\/a> Sandford why he had never mentioned the testimony<\/a> of Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture:<\/p>\n

\u2018Thanks for replying. The UN\u2019s @NilsMelzer<\/a> notes that \u201cthe case is a battle over press freedom, the rule of law & the future of democracy, none of which can coexist with secrecy\u201d. Surely the requirement of impartiality means you should report this; not wait until it is too late?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We received no further response from the BBC correspondent. However, Rebecca Vincent<\/a>, Director of International Campaigns at Reporters Without Borders, followed up our challenge and told<\/a> Sandford:<\/p>\n

\u2018I find this disappointing, Daniel. Repetitive or not, the public needs to know what is happening in these proceedings. And meanwhile \u2013 NGOs have been barred access. I can only get in thanks to the support of a network of grassroots activists queuing from 5 am over four weeks.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sandford bristled<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018So you decided to join the pile-on too Rebecca? Thank you. I politely explained to @medialens why I personally was not covering the case and added that I had attended some hearings from personal interest, and explained why it is not news every day. But you are disappointed?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2018Pile-on\u2019 is the pejorative term used when a journalist receives critical replies from the public. Unfortunately, Sandford had received some abuse, but most people made polite and rational points. As we have learned over the years, most journalists hate<\/em> being challenged by informed members of the public. And any instances of abuse \u2013 usually in the minority \u2013 are often leaned upon as an excuse to ignore or dismiss all<\/em> challenges.<\/p>\n

The home affairs correspondent continued<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t have great influence over what is covered each day except on those stories I am working on, but press freedom does include the freedom for a news organisation to decide what should be included in the news each day.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rebecca Vincent replied<\/a> again:<\/p>\n

\u2018Which very often does not seem to include stories of massively egregious press freedom violations \u2013 that will in turn set a precedent affecting said news organisation. As I said, disappointing.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Teymoor Nabili, a former news presenter on Al Jazeera, BBC and CNBC, replied<\/a> to Sandford:<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s a particularly bizarre reading of \u201cpress freedom\u201d\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed. In the \u2018mainstream\u2019 media \u2013 BBC News included \u2013 \u2018press freedom\u2019 amounts to publishing power-friendly \u2018news\u2019 articles, biased \u2018analysis\u2019 and commentary, and diversionary pabulum and tittle-tattle.<\/p>\n

Journalist Mohammed Elmaazi, who had been reporting daily from the trial, also replied<\/a> to Sandford:<\/p>\n

\u2018This is probably the most significant case involving press freedom, the right to know and the Rule of Law, in the Western world in half a century, if not more so. Though as an individual reporter I wouldn\u2019t hold you personally responsible for BBC\u2019s coverage (or lack thereof).\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As John McEvoy noted<\/a> in a piece on The Canary website:<\/p>\n

\u2018To write about the greatest press freedom case in recent history, it has been necessary to rely almost exclusively on the work of independent journalists.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An extensive list of these journalists can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Richard Medhurst, one of the independent journalists reporting the trial, made a powerful short speech<\/a> outside the Old Bailey on one of the final days. The trial, and the lack of media coverage, was \u2018an abomination\u2019, he said. So too was the fact that the West\u2019s war criminals were not even mentioned in court \u2013 Tony Blair, George Bush, Jack Straw, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and the rest. In sum, the hearing was:<\/p>\n

\u2018An absolute mockery of any kind of semblance of justice in this country\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Former UK ambassador Craig Murray concurred when he too spoke outside the Old Bailey, saying<\/a> of Assange:<\/p>\n

\u2018His ordeal goes on and on. And all because he published the truth. There is no allegation in that court room that anything he published was a lie. Anything he published was true. And much of that truth revealed terrible crimes \u2013 war crimes and crimes against humanity, and lies and corruption by government. And not one of the people who committed those war crimes is on trial anywhere. Instead we have the man who had the courage to reveal those war crimes is the one whose liberty is at stake.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Twitter commenter made<\/a> a point about one of the independent reporters at the trial:<\/p>\n

\u2018Kevin Gosztola has reported more on the Julian Assange extradition trial than the NY Times, WaPo, BBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, MSNBC have combined.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gosztola, editor of Shadowproof.com website, followed up<\/a> with:<\/p>\n

\u2018Fact-checked this and it only took a few minutes to confirm #AssangeTrial\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yet, bizarrely, there was<\/em> a BBC reporter present throughout the Assange hearing, according to both Rebecca Vincent and James Doleman<\/a> of Byline Times, who was providing daily trial updates. As Vincent noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018The BBC had a reporter in court (I could see him from the public gallery) who was apparently filing twice a day. There were 18 days of proceedings. Why weren\u2019t more pieces published?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, what was happening to the reports that were presumably being submitted by the BBC reporter? Nobody could tell us, including the ever-silent editors of BBC News at Ten.<\/p>\n

Investigative journalists Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis of Declassified UK have extensively studied numerous aspects of the Assange extradition hearing and published seven articles<\/a> concerning legal irregularities and conflicts of interest in the case. These articles revealed:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Julian Assange\u2019s judge and her husband\u2019s links to the British military establishment exposed by WikiLeaks<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. The son of Julian Assange\u2019s judge is linked to an anti-data leak company created by the UK intelligence establishment<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Chief magistrate in Assange case received financial benefits from secretive partner organisations of UK Foreign Office<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. UK minister who approved Trump\u2019s request to extradite Assange spoke at secretive US conferences with people calling for him to be \u201cneutralized\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. At risk from coronavirus, Julian Assange is one of just two inmates in Belmarsh maximum-security prison held for skipping bail<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. UK government refuses to release information about Assange judge who has 96% extradition record<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. As British judge made rulings against Julian Assange, her husband was involved with right-wing lobby group briefing against WikiLeaks founder<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    BBC News and other corporate media could certainly not be accused of being at all \u2018repetitive\u2019 about such deeply damaging aspects of the extradition hearing.<\/p>\n

    Observing the court proceedings from the limited space of the public gallery day by day, Murray warned<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018It has been clear to me from Day 1 that I am watching a charade unfold. It is not in the least a shock to me that [magistrate Vanessa] Baraitser does not think anything beyond the written opening arguments has any effect. I have again and again reported to you that, where rulings have to be made, she has brought them into court pre-written, before hearing the arguments before her.<\/p>\n

    \u2018I strongly expect the final decision was made in this case even before opening arguments were received.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Murray added:<\/p>\n

    \u2018The plan of the US Government throughout has been to limit the information available to the public and limit the effective access to a wider public of what information is available. Thus we have seen the extreme restrictions on both physical and video access. A complicit mainstream media has ensured those of us who know what is happening are very few in the wider population.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    In a superb piece<\/a> for Consortium News, political commentator Alexander Mercouris demolished the shifting and nonsensical US case for extradition. He nailed the fundamental reason that Washington is pursuing Assange:<\/p>\n

    \u2018Julian Assange and his organization WikiLeaks, have done those things which the U.S. government and its national security apparatus most fear, and have worked hardest to prevent, by exposing the terrible reality of much of what the U.S. government now routinely does, and is determined to conceal, and what much of the media is helping the U.S. government to conceal.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    He continued:<\/p>\n

    \u2018the true purpose of the U.S. government\u2019s relentless pursuit of Assange is to prevent him from exposing more of its crimes, and to punish him for exposing those of its crimes which he did expose, if only so as to deter others from doing the same thing, is perfectly obvious to any unbiased and realistic observer.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Mercouris added:<\/p>\n

    \u2018Assange and WikiLeaks have exposed rampant war crimes and human rights abuses over the course of illegal wars waged by the U.S. government and its allies.\u00a0 The death toll from these wars runs at the very least into the tens of thousands, and more plausibly into the hundreds of thousands or even millions.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    In conclusion:<\/p>\n

    \u2018In other words, it is Assange and his sources, first and foremost Chelsea Manning, who are the defenders of international law, including the Nuremberg Principles, and including in the case which is currently underway, whilst it is those who persecute them, including by bringing the current case against Assange, who are international law\u2019s violators.<\/p>\n

    \u2018This is the single most important fact about this case, and it explains everything about it.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    At the end of the trial, RT\u2019s Afshin Rattansi noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018English magistrate Vanessa Baraitser declares at London\u2019s Old Bailey that she will judge on Julian Assange\u2019s extradition to a Virginia Court to face Espionage charges on 4 January 2021. The judgement will impact every journalist in the world.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    We highlighted that last sentence on our Twitter feed, adding<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018As for stenographers and guardians of power in the \u201cmainstream\u201d media, they can just carry on as before\u2026\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    This, of course, is a central reason why state-corporate \u2018journalists\u2019 are so disinterested in the trial. The overwhelming majority simply do not \u2013 cannot \u2013 see themselves threatened by Washington\u2019s assault on real journalism and truth-telling.<\/p>\n

    Closing Scene: A BBC Man Appears<\/strong><\/p>\n

    On the penultimate day of the four-week hearing, the BBC\u2019s avuncular veteran reporter John Simpson<\/a> turned up (\u2018Still with BBC after 53 yrs, trying to make sense of a mad world\u2019, says his Twitter bio): someone we had sparred<\/a> with on the topic of Iraq<\/a> in the early days of Media Lens.<\/p>\n

    He tweeted<\/a> after his day at court:<\/p>\n

    \u2018I went to Julian #Assange\u2019s extradition hearing at the Old Bailey today.\u00a0 It will end tomorrow or Friday, with a decision expected in January.\u00a0 Alarming witness statements today from whistleblowers about the bugging of Assange\u2019s lawyers in Spain.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Simpson\u2019s comment was not entirely accurate or comprehensive. According to whistleblower testimony<\/a> presented at the Old Bailey by former employees of UC Global, a Spanish security company, attempts had allegedly been made by the company to bug Assange and his lawyers inside the Ecuador embassy<\/em>, under the auspices of the CIA<\/a>. That fact alone should have been sufficient to throw out any court case against Assange, given the supposedly sacrosanct confidentiality of private legal conversations between lawyers and clients. There were even proposals by UC Global to kidnap or poison<\/a> the WikiLeaks publisher on behalf of the CIA. Investigative journalist Max Blumenthal has done valuable work in exposing all of this, as he detailed in an interview<\/a> with Deepa Driver of the campaign group Don\u2019t Extradite Assange, and in an extensive article<\/a> for The Grayzone website.<\/p>\n

    These shocking details appear never to have surfaced in BBC coverage, such as it was. On October 2 \u2013 the day after the hearing had ended \u2013 we observed<\/a> that there had been just four articles published on the website during the hearing. One was a short, bland report of the first day of the case. Two were more \u2018human interest\u2019 pieces about Assange\u2019s partner, Stella Moris, and their two children. A fourth piece was titled, \u2018Julian Assange: Campaigner or attention seeker\u2019. Perhaps \u2018the world\u2019s most trusted international news broadcaster\u2019<\/a> believes the latter to be the case, thus deciding to all but ignore the hearing and its serious implications for justice, journalism and democracy.<\/p>\n

    It is worth noting that Stuart Millar is the digital news editor at BBC News, so presumably has responsibility for the website. He is the former head of news at the Guardian. This \u2018comical\u2019 tweet<\/a> about Assange dates from Millar\u2019s time at the Guardian:<\/p>\n

    \u2018I like to think that #Assange chose the Ecuadorean embassy because it\u2019s so convenient for Harrods\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Yet more proof, if any were needed, of the groupthink that prevails among even the most \u2018respected\u2019 media outlets. If you need to demonstrate that your media credentials are bona fide<\/em> \u2013 that you are \u2018one of us\u2019 \u2013 making a \u2018joke\u2019 at the expense of Julian Assange<\/a> is a sure-fire way to show you can be trusted.<\/p>\n

    It would never do, for example, to give headline coverage to the CIA-instigated spying of Assange in the Ecuador embassy, the torture he is enduring by his incarceration, his parlous mental and physical state, the real risk of suicide should he be extradited to the US, almost certainly being dumped into the \u2018hellhole\u2019 of a \u2018supermax\u2019 US prison. All of this is to ensure that Assange serves as a warning example to anyone \u2013 anywhere in the world \u2013 who might dare to publish information that the US government does not wish to be made public.<\/p>\n

    Such grotesquely disturbing details did not even approach becoming \u2018slightly repetitive\u2019 to consumers of BBC News. Instead, they were buried. The BBC could, for instance, have interviewed Fidel Narvaez, former Ecuadorian Consul, to speak about the spying<\/a> (which took place after Narvaez had been replaced in the embassy, following the election of Ecuador president, Lenin Moreno, who has been bending over backwards to do the US\u2019s bidding<\/a> under Donald Trump).<\/p>\n

    BBC journalists, and other \u2018mainstream\u2019 reporters could have included something of Noam Chomsky\u2019s five-page submission<\/a> to the hearing in support of Assange. They could have printed just one line, namely that Assange:<\/p>\n

    \u2018has performed an enormous service to all the people in the world who treasure the values of freedom and democracy\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Reporters routinely behave as stenographers to power \u2013 the BBC\u2019s political editor Laura Kuenssberg and ITV\u2019s political editor Robert Peston are prime examples. But to be a stenographer to cogent commentary from Noam Chomsky is, of course, unthinkable. As we pointed out on Twitter on October 2, the day after the hearing ended, Kuenssberg has mentioned Assange a grand total of four times on her Twitter account \u2013 all back in 2014. Then, she had asked blankly:<\/p>\n

    \u2018What do you think should happen to him?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Her silence on the extradition hearing spoke volumes: BBC News in a nutshell.<\/p>\n

    As far as we can tell from Twitter searches, Peston last mentioned Julian Assange on January 29, 2017<\/a>. When we published a media alert<\/a> last month that discussed Assange, we challenged<\/a> Peston and Kuenssberg about their long-term silence on the WikiLeaks founder. Needless to say, they did not reply.<\/p>\n

    Likewise, other high-profile media figures including the BBC\u2019s Andrew Marr, Huw Edwards, Andrew Neil and Nick Robinson, and Sky News political editor Adam Boulton, kept quiet when we asked<\/a> them to explain their silence on Assange.<\/p>\n

    As US comedian Jimmy Dore said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018We need everybody exposing war crimes and the crimes of our government\u2026 So if you see a newsperson and they\u2019re not screaming about this, the reason why they\u2019re not is because it helps their career.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    \u2018Free Julian Assange\u2019 campaigner John Mcghee, one of those protesting outside the Old Bailey on the day John Simpson was there, wrote an account<\/a> of having met the BBC world affairs editor and enjoying a warm friendly exchange:<\/p>\n

    \u2018We talked for a few minutes and he revealed to me his incomprehension at the glaring absence of media representatives in or indeed outside the Old Bailey. He was genuinely shocked by the fact that a mainstream media embargo has apparently been imposed on the trial of the century that could sound the death knell for freedom of speech the world over.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Certainly, some credit is due to John Simpson for reporting on the extradition hearing on that day\u2019s BBC Radio 4 PM Programme<\/a>. But it was a short segment of just 3 mins, 28 secs near the end of the hour-long programme, and it wasn\u2019t even trailed at the start of PM. Shocked or not, Simpson certainly made no mention of his \u2018incomprehension\u2019 at the lack of media coverage.<\/p>\n

    Moreover, although it included short quotes from Stella Moris, Assange\u2019s partner, and Jen Robinson, one of Assange\u2019s lawyers, it was a thin piece that even repeated the debunked claim that US agents and informers had been harmed as a result of the work of WikiLeaks and Assange. It missed out so much of importance that was being diligently chronicled daily by Craig Murray<\/a>. His detailed updates included copious vital facts that were glaringly absent from almost all \u2018mainstream\u2019 coverage; in particular BBC News.<\/p>\n

    Simpson reacted with short shrift (or silence) to those who complained to him on Twitter about the dearth of BBC coverage. He replied<\/a> to one:<\/p>\n

    \u2018So how come I reported on this for the BBC yesterday? Find another conspiracy theory, is my advice.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    We are aware that the BBC did not totally<\/em> blank Assange. But surely even Simpson could recognise that coverage had been pitifully inadequate given the importance and possible repercussions of the case? No \u2018conspiracy theory\u2019 is required. It is simply a fact.<\/p>\n

    Recently, when Tim Davie, the new BBC director general, tried to make his mark by declaring<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018We are going to be publishing clear social guidelines\u2026 the enforcement policies will be very clear\u2026 we\u2019ll be able to take people off Twitter\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    he was asked<\/a> by MPs \u2018about the impartiality of those who work for the BBC\u2019. But so far, none of them have asked about the impartiality of those who work for the BBC and have tweeted (or reported) nothing about a hugely significant political trial taking place in this country. It is what John Pilger rightly calls<\/a>, \u2018lying by omission\u2019.<\/p>\n

    We sent<\/a> an open tweet to any prospective BBC whistleblowers struggling with their consciences:<\/p>\n

    \u2018Most large organisations have whistleblowers who step forward when ethics, conscience and courage prevail.<\/p>\n

    \u2018Where are the whistleblowers inside BBC newsrooms? #JulianAssange<\/a>\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Nobody has responded, so far.<\/p>\n

    \u2018Shaming\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Afshin Rattansi interviewed John Pilger about the Assange hearing and its ramifications on the Going Underground programme on RT (which, as Twitter is keen to tell everyone, is \u2018Russia state-affiliated media\u2019. As yet, BBC News Twitter accounts have not been labelled as \u2018UK state-affiliated media\u2019).<\/p>\n

    Rattansi asked Pilger to respond to Daniel Sandford\u2019s excuse for not reporting on the hearing as it was \u2018slightly repetitive\u2019. Pilger said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018For that BBC journalist to describe [the hearing] as \u201crepetitive\u201d doesn\u2019t quite leave me speechless. But it leaves me with a sense that it\u2019s over with much of the media.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    He explained:<\/p>\n

    \u2018To watch this day after day. This extraordinary, important trial telling us so much about how those who govern us, those who want to control our lives, and what they do to other countries, how they lie to us \u2013 watch this day after day and see none of it reported. Or, if you do see it reported, you\u2019ll see something like \u201cAssange told to pipe down\u201d by the judge on a day \u2013 he only did this two or three times, I don\u2019t know how he kept his mouth shut \u2013 where he stood up and protested at evidence that was clearly false and offensive to him. That was the headline. That was the story of the day.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    One vital example was when Assange was wrongly accused by the prosecution lawyers of having endangered the lives of US agents and their informers in releasing WikiLeaks documents that had not been redacted of names. This endlessly repeated propaganda claim was refuted by the famous Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who testified<\/a> on behalf of Assange:<\/p>\n

    \u2018I have also spoken to [Assange] privately over many hours. During 2010 and 2011, at a time when some of the published material had not yet seen the light of day, I was able to observe [Julian\u2019s] approach. It was the exact opposite of reckless publication and nor would he wilfully expose others to harm.<\/p>\n

    \u2018Wikileaks could have published the entirety of the material on receipt. Instead I was able to observe but also to discuss with him the unprecedented steps he initiated, of engaging with conventional media partners, [to maximise] the impact of publication [so] it might [best] affect US government policy and its alteration.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Award-winning Australian journalist Mark Davis was an eye-witness<\/a> to the preparation of the Afghan War Logs in 2010 for newspaper publication, documented in Davis\u2019s film, \u2018Inside Wikileaks\u2019. Davis spoke<\/a> at a public meeting in Sydney last year and said that he was present alongside Assange in the Guardian\u2019s \u2018bunker\u2019 where a team from the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel worked on the publication of articles based on, as the NYT put it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018a six-year archive of classified military documents [that] offers an unvarnished and grim picture of the Afghan war.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Davis attests<\/a> that, far from being \u2018cavalier\u2019 about releasing documents that might endanger lives, it was:<\/p>\n

    \u2018Guardian journalists [who] neglected and appeared to care little about redacting the documents.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Moreover:<\/p>\n

    \u2018They had a \u201cgraveyard humour\u201d about people being harmed and no one, he stated emphatically, expressed concern about civilian casualties except Julian Assange.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Assange had:<\/p>\n

    \u2018subsequently requested that the release of the Afghan War Logs be delayed for the purpose of redaction, but the Guardian not only insisted on the agreed date, they abandoned him to redact 10,000 documents alone.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    In fact, Assange worked through the night to do this, after the Guardian journalists had gone home.<\/p>\n

    Moreover, the claim that lives had been put at risk by WikiLeaks in publishing US cables could not even be substantiated by the US itself. As Patrick Cockburn observed<\/a> in the Independent:<\/p>\n

    \u2018The Pentagon has admitted that it failed to find a single person covertly working for the US who had been killed as a result of the WikiLeaks disclosures. This failure was not for lack of trying: The Pentagon had set up a special military task force, deploying 120 counter-intelligence officers, to find at least one death that could be blamed on Assange and his colleagues but had found nothing.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    In the same RT interview mentioned earlier, Rattansi asked about the role of the Guardian in the Assange<\/a> case; something we have documented<\/a> at length. Pilger summed up<\/a> their \u2018campaign of vilification against Assange<\/a>, the way they turned on their source, as \u2018a disgrace\u2019.<\/p>\n

    In an interview<\/a> for the Australian magazine Arena, Pilger expanded on this important component of the Assange story:<\/p>\n

    \u2018How shaming it all is. A decade ago, the Guardian<\/em> exploited Assange\u2019s work, claimed its profit and prizes as well as a lucrative Hollywood deal, then turned on him with venom. Throughout the Old Bailey trial, two names have been cited by the prosecution, the Guardian<\/em>\u2019s David Leigh, now retired as \u201cinvestigations editor\u201d and Luke Harding, the Russiaphobe and author of a fictional Guardian<\/em> \u201cscoop<\/a>\u201d that claimed Trump adviser Paul Manafort and a group of Russians visited Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy. This never happened, and the Guardian<\/em> has yet to apologise. The Harding and Leigh book on Assange\u2014written behind their subject\u2019s back\u2014disclosed a secret password to a WikiLeaks file that Assange had entrusted to Leigh during the Guardian<\/em>\u2019s \u2018partnership\u2019. Why the defence has not called this pair is difficult to understand.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    He continued:<\/p>\n

    \u2018Assange is quoted in their book declaring during a dinner at a London restaurant that he didn\u2019t care if informants named in the leaks were harmed. Neither Harding nor Leigh was at the dinner. John Goetz, an investigations reporter with Der Spiegel<\/em>, was at the dinner and testified that Assange said nothing of the kind. Incredibly, Judge Baraitser stopped Goetz actually saying this in court.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    True to their role as \u2018leftist\u2019 Guardian figleaves, neither Owen Jones nor George Monbiot published an article so much as mentioning Julian Assange during the four-week hearing. Jones tweeted<\/a> \u2018support\u2019 by linking back to an article he published in April 2019. Monbiot stumped up the energy to send out three token tweets<\/a>. But he tweeted nothing about Nils Melzer, Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky or the shocking revelations from UC Global whistleblowers about spying on Assange, along with CIA-sponsored plans to kidnap or poison him.<\/p>\n

    One Twitter user asked<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018Why are people \u201cspooked\u201d by the Assange case? It\u2019s a genuine question, the media silence is weird, even on the left, @AyoCaesar<\/a> @AaronBastani<\/a> @GeorgeMonbiot<\/a> to name a few.<\/p>\n

    \u2018What\u2019s stopping them from screaming this from the rooftops? Are they scared, threatened, what?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Monbiot at least replied<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018I\u2019ve tweeted about it many times. But for me it\u2019s one of hundreds of crucial issues, many of which are even more important. It\u2019s terrible, but compared to, say, soil loss, it\u2019s a long way down my list.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Challenged further about his near-silence, he said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018I have nothing to add to what others have already said. I never write about an issue unless I have something new and original to say. It\u2019s not about ticking boxes for me, it\u2019s about expanding the field.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    We responded<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018What a happy coincidence that @GeorgeMonbiot can find nothing \u201cnew and original\u201d to say about Assange, who has been targeted with a ferocious smear campaign by his employer. Try citing @NilsMelzer\u2019s arguments, George, that would be \u201cexpanding the field\u201d for most Guardian readers.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    As the former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u2018Monbiot could have served as a counterweight to the relentless maligning of Assange in the Guardian\u2019s pages by pointing out how these smears were unfounded. Instead he has either echoed those smears, or equivocated on them, or remained silent.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Cook added:<\/p>\n

    \u2018Monbiot is not the free thinker, the fearless investigator of difficult truths, the leftwing conscience he claims to be. It is not really his fault. It is in the nature of the function he serves at the Guardian \u2026He enjoys the freedom to speak out loudly on the dangers of environmental destruction, but that freedom comes at a price \u2013 that he closely adhere to the technocratic, liberal consensus on other issues.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    In short:<\/p>\n

    \u2018Monbiot, therefore, treads the finest line of all the Guardian\u2019s columnists. His position is the most absurd, the one plagued with the biggest internal contradiction: he must sell extreme environmental concern from within a newspaper that is entirely embedded in the economic logic of the very neoliberal system that is destroying the planet.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    This is supremely relevant to the Assange case. Because if the US wins, then journalism and the public\u2019s ability to know what is going in the world will be even more crushed than they already are. And that spells disaster for avoiding worldwide environmental breakdown<\/a> in an era of rampant global capitalism.<\/p>\n

    __________________________________________<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>Media Lens is a UK-based media watchdog group headed by David Edwards and David Cromwell. <\/em>In 2007,<\/em> Media Lens was awarded the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Prize<\/a>.\u00a0We have written three co-authored books<\/em>:\u00a0Guardians of Power-The Myth of the Liberal Media <\/a>(Pluto Press, 2006),<\/em> Newspeak-In the 21st Century<\/a> (Pluto Press, 2009), and<\/em> Propaganda Blitz<\/a> (Pluto Press, 2018)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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

    7 Oct 2020 – One of the most imposing features of state-corporate propaganda is its incessant, repetitive nature. Over and over again, the \u2018mainstream\u2019 media have to convince the public that \u2018our\u2019 government prioritises the health, welfare and livelihoods of the general population, rather than the private interests of an elite stratum of society that owns and runs all the major institutions, banks, corporations and media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":170173,"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-170171","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\/170171","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=170171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}