I didn’t say journalists had to be neutral. I never used the word neutral. Objectivity is a myth and impossible to obtain.
I’m saying these journalists didn’t want to work for a flagrantly partisan organization
that lied about its commitment to transparency.
If you want to be a mouthpiece for Putin and conservative talking points, then you need to not pretend you’re evenhanded and egalitarian with your leaks and publication.
The only people who don’t pretend to be evenhanded and egalitarian are, like, indie communist zines. This is just a problem with the industry as a whole - everyone pretends to be neutral, even though literally no one is. That’s not something unique to Assange, so kinda irrelevant imo
So you don’t agree that the entire (claimed) raison d’être of wikileaks was that they were a haven for whistleblowers to bring their information to be vetted by quality journalists and released to the broader public, regardless of the political leanings of the information or people involved?
I agree with you that we should not be thrusting that mandate on outlets. But that’s not what happened. WikiLeaks claimed to be a beacon of transparency. That is a bar they set for themselves. I don’t care if they are “biased“ or whatever, I care that their job is to release information (their own mandate) and then they withhold it when it isn’t convenient for Assange’s politics.
I didn’t say journalists had to be neutral. I never used the word neutral. Objectivity is a myth and impossible to obtain.
I’m saying these journalists didn’t want to work for a flagrantly partisan organization
that lied about its commitment to transparency.
If you want to be a mouthpiece for Putin and conservative talking points, then you need to not pretend you’re evenhanded and egalitarian with your leaks and publication.
The only people who don’t pretend to be evenhanded and egalitarian are, like, indie communist zines. This is just a problem with the industry as a whole - everyone pretends to be neutral, even though literally no one is. That’s not something unique to Assange, so kinda irrelevant imo
So you don’t agree that the entire (claimed) raison d’être of wikileaks was that they were a haven for whistleblowers to bring their information to be vetted by quality journalists and released to the broader public, regardless of the political leanings of the information or people involved?
I agree with you that we should not be thrusting that mandate on outlets. But that’s not what happened. WikiLeaks claimed to be a beacon of transparency. That is a bar they set for themselves. I don’t care if they are “biased“ or whatever, I care that their job is to release information (their own mandate) and then they withhold it when it isn’t convenient for Assange’s politics.