The Guardian’s New Statement Betrays Both Julian Assange and Journalism | Hacker News Reader

The Guardian’s New Statement Betrays Both Julian Assange and Journalism

counterpunch.org

83 pointsUdik6 comments

It is obvious that The Guardian is a different newspaper than nearly a decade ago; only the name is the same. Immediately after the Wikileaks publications, UK officials were able to pressure the newspaper into keeping away from such exposés.

But really the biggest shift in The Guardian isn't due to pressure from officials but rather the brutal world of modern ad-based journalism. The paper seems to have concluded that profit should be sought in stoking the culture wars, because making readers angry and impassioned leads to more views, more shares, and more ad impressions. Because The Guardian is historically a paper of the Left, that meant they chose to position themselves on the left side of current polemics, so there was e.g. a surge in articles on trans issues, for example. But don't assume the paper's management really cares so much about those ideals, this is just how they figure they can make money.

Hard-hitting investigative journalism of the Assange and Manning type, sadly, does not appeal to enough readers to ensure profitability.

My impression is that much of the left has become focused on a few systemic issues (feminism and gender, racism, climate change) and has entirely renounced observing and interpreting reality in terms of more immediate causes and responsibilities. For example, it's not specific laws about schooling, welfare and justice that keep some US minorities in a state of relative poverty, it's a more vague "systemic racism" of which all are responsible, and nobody in particular. It's not foreign intervention and larger geopolitical games that cause wars in some countries, it's climate change- of which again, we're all responsible. It's not poor governance and booming birth rates that cause poverty and mass emigrations from certain poor countries- no, it's climate change again.

These narratives seem very useful to maintaining the status quo and a certain US-aligned narrative. When was the last time you've read on a mainstream newspaper an analysis of the human costs of financing and arming the Syrian rebels for billions of dollars? Or an analysis of the reasons Putin would shoot himself and Russia in the foot by attempting to kill harmless opponent in the most obvious way? But no, we're too busy reading another article on why it cannot be tolerated that someone painted his face black for a carnival party or on how climate change is endangering the harvest of shrimps in a village of mud huts.

> how climate change is endangering the harvest of shrimps in a village of mud huts.

Pro-tip, human beings live in those mud huts, and base their way of life on those shrimps, so for them, it's a big deal.

Way to dismiss human lives as having no value.

I don't mean to dismiss human lives; what I mean is that we used to worry about how to lift people out of poverty, and now instead we ask for global changes so that they can keep living in the same poverty as before.

It's an example of focusing on some huge systemic issue and completely forgetting that there are issues that have a much more direct impact- such as lack of jobs, education, access to healthcare, etc.

"of which all are responsible, and nobody in particular"

You are wrong. They are responsible, they just let others do their dirty work to appear like "innocent doves". This is how it always worked. There are no few bad people liing among good ones. There are a few good people living among murderous animals.

Article is 50% angry filler that says nothing.

The actual content is that (as already reported)

Leigh leaked the encryption password for the interacted files before Assange leaked unredacted files

Assange gave the unredacted files to Leigh instead of giving a redacted copy, despite Assange's scrupulous redaction efforts in the files he originally published

Assange (partially) reuses passwords across his wikileaks files(!) and even across passwords he gives to others(!!!) (Leigh)

Guardian made a dubious claim that the password had somehow "expired" like an OTP challenge-response code

No one from the Guardian isn't on trial for it's part in the allege crime of leaking secrets, showing this is purely a political persecution

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