Corporate mass media isn't a monolith. Do you think ProPublica is publishing clickbait? Do you think The Guardian publishing the Snowden leaks was manufacturing consent. Do you think James Risen at the NY Times didn't do 1000X more work to uncover Stellar Wind than a guy who publishes leaks? Do you think Buzzfeed writes clickbait headlines? Wait, forget that last one.

Seriously, the notion that "media" does anything is preposterous. Even if you think they want to manufacture consent, it's pretty obvious there is nothing near consensus amongst themselves. Everyone who writes news can make mistakes or let bias slip in, but that's not a conspiracy.

On the flip side, Assange was always pretty upfront about how he did his work for his own agenda. Anything he ever published that actually helped people was purely coincidental.

When the leakers get leaked. The Intercept published a trove of private communications showing Wikileaks anti-Hillary (as well as casually sexist and racist) agenda:

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks...