Though many of the most decadent features of the Alan Rusbridger-era Guardian have gone – not least Rusbridger himself – one obsession remains: their petty war against Julian Assange. The latest manifestation of this is a giggling, peekaboo report around a memo of understanding between the Ecuadorian government and Assange, still currently seeking asylum in the country’s embassy. The guts of the report suggests that Ecuador’s government has simply set out the conditions under which Assange lives there, including medical visits and the care of his cat. But the construction of it is in the form The Guardian loves: Assange as a naughty teenager.
Honestly, haven’t they had enough of this by now? The Rusbridger regime never got over the fact that WikiLeaks hadn’t simply handed over the Cablegate files, and let them get on with it, and instead wanted an ongoing role in their distribution. The Guardian’s pique was, at root, an awareness that they needed WikiLeaks to innovate mass exposes, in a manner that they hadn’t been able to develop themselves. Since then, mass releases that have dropped into The Guardian’s lap, such as the Panama Papers, have been because the WikiLeaks flood of material established the paper as a place for that sort of journalism.
The payback for that was that The Guardian committed one of the gravest breaches of journalistic ethics in recent times, allowing a journalist who had publicly fallen out with Assange – Nick Davies – to report on Assange’s extradition hearings, and the Swedish police inquiry into sex crime allegations, in real time. The misconstruction of the police report had a huge effect on the misperception of the events Assange was accused of. It was not difficult to assume that Assange was being targeted by a bunch of vengeful Oxbridge arseholes.
Rusbridger is gone now, barred from further involvement in The Guardian, after having nearly bankrupted the thing with the “Guardian Unlimited” project. Perhaps the paper could ditch this last vestige of the ancient regime, and report on WikiLeaks and their former collaborator honestly?
Thank you! Finally, someone in Australia is mentioning Assange, and mentioning him in a more positive light. And the general media wonder why people are losing faith in them. PR megaphones the lot of them. Guy, I’m putting you on my read list (I know, you’re so excited by this). Keep it up 🙂
All very easy don’t subscribe or donate to the Guardian.
Well, that’s a good way to end public discussion and debate.
Don’t like Hanson?, don’t vote for her. Don’t like the Greens?, don’t vote for them. Don’t like toxic waste?, don’t dump it …
Well Guy, don’t know if you are right or wrong here, but not a fan of Assange myself.
I think he’s on a ‘hiding to nothing’, whatever happens to him or were ever he goes.
I don’t blame him for trying to avoid extradition, as the Swedes and Brits will do him in the first opportunity they get.
Narcissism is only attractive to the narcissistic.
The Swedes have dropped all charges against him and don’t want him extradited any more. It’s just the bloody-minded British judicial system that wants to punish him for trying to avoid an extradition request that should never have been granted in the first place.
The Guardian tends to be the bastion of the SJWs. If impartiality is too much to ask (consider the coverage of Trump over 2016 and the knee-jerking since then) at least one might strive for accuracy – but apparently the rag is challenged there; hence my not continuing with the paper. I have no objection to paying for informed reporting but that is not what one gets from the G.
As to Assange the trial could be conducted via video in this day and age. For those that are seeking retribution irrespective of a trial the guy has been de facto in the can for some number of years. Frankly, is is rather good of Ecuador to accommodate an animal. As for anything else Assange can rely on his apparent supporters but given what has been written about him, by those who have worked for and with him, he has a management style similar to that of Rudd.
And where is the Australian govt in all this? Doesn’t really matter if you agree with him or not, he’s not guilty of a crime in England or Australia and ‘questionable’ charges were dropped in Sweden. He’s an Australian citizen, yet our govt seems fine with handing him over the American ‘justice’ system.