Er, Assange himself was the press, here. Chelsea Manning was the anonymous whistleblower who tried to keep her identity safe until Adrian Lamo (may God have mercy on his soul, because I sure won't) reported her to US authorities.
The same Adrian Lamo who told Chelsea Manning that he'd treat what she told him as a confession (he was an ordained minister and the implication was that he'd never tell anybody) to gain her trust[1].
Let's not forget Kevin Poulsen's complicity in this.
The hacker community is not your friend, and you need to assume that members will sell you out for glory or to save their own asses.
I've never celebrated the death of anybody, but I did feel the world was a better place after Adrian Lamo died.
[1] https://boingboing.net/2010/06/19/wikileaks-a-somewhat.html
Manning was a spiteful security leak, not a whistleblower.
It gets so much harder to pretend that they are bringing freedom to the Iraqis. I'm sure the poor government had to double its spending on pro-military propaganda because of this evil spiteful security leak.
Manning was copying any and all classified content and exposing it indiscriminately.
Like, maybe it was important that certain things were exposed, but it wasn't a whistleblower act, it was a spiteful soldier acting out.