With the recent arrest of Julian Assange making headlines, it’s interesting to see the way the media is treating Assange, a real journalists who has risked so much, and the way they treated fake “journalist” Jamal Khashoggi who was really just an intelligent asset and propaganda mouthpiece.
You see, the media has totally inverted these two narratives to fit their own agenda.
When Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, the media was quick to paint him as a fearless journalist speaking truth to power. But in reality, he was a long time intelligence asset who worked both sides for his own benefit. He had ties to weapons dealers, intelligence agencies, and corrupt governments. He was no journalist and he never was one. His work for the Washington Post writing op-eds was just more of his intelligence work – Spreading the agenda of those who he was currently working for. In other words, he was the exact opposite of a journalist.
Then take Assange. A man who has dedicated his life to shining a light on corruption around the world. And as someone who treated all governments equally, sometimes it hurt to read what Wikileaks published because it made us question our own allegiances to certain political parties or officials. But in the end, he was fair and the track record of Wikileaks is a shocking and unmatched 100% accurate. As they often state, 10 million documents in 10 years and not one retracted story or false document. No other news source has a record that even approaches that of Wikileaks.
And Assange has risked and lost so much in his pursuit of transparency. Forced to live in exile for years and years. He has been away from his children and family for most of their lives, and his health has declined as we can see by his latest photos. In other words, this man risked almost everything to bring us the truth. Julian Assange is the definition of a journalist.
But as we watch events unfold, news sources are purposefully misstating Assange’s actions. Reports by CBS and CNN have both incorrectly labeled him as a hacker, a disparaging characterization meant to sway opinions.
But what the mainstream media always fail to do when telling the Assange story is explain that everything he did is not only commonplace in journalism, it is protected by our own First Amendment and Supreme Court.
For example, over the last two years how many times has a news story started in the mainstream media by stating that they have obtained “leaked documents” and then go to on to reveal what the contents of those documents are in the story. This happens on an almost daily basis and it is totally legal and protected under the Constitution.
According to the law and the Supreme Court, journalists are allowed to publish private information obtained via a ‘whistle-blower” as long as the information is deemed newsworthy. They also must not play a part in the obtaining of that information or break the law to obtain it, although the person originally obtaining it may have. A journalist can only act as a conduit to release and verify the information.
This is exactly what Assange has done with Wikileaks. He is simply a conduit for whistle-blowers to expose corruption. It is no different than what The New York Times or Washington Post do everyday. The only difference is that Assange is not a controlled source, so when he does it, he is labeled a hacker or foreign intelligence operation.
In the very thin case against Assange, the U.S. indictment claims that Assange prompted Chelsea Manning to obtain more documents than she had already delivered. However, the case rests on a brief, anonymous conversation over a chat messaging service. Julian Assange was never named or identified in those chats. But according to the indictment, the person on the chat stated that “curious eyes never run dry in my experience”. This one line, which there is no way to even prove came from Assange, is what the government is claiming broke the law. So we have a vague statement from someone that cannot even be verified as coming from Assange, and this communication is what the whole indictment rests on. The indictment also claims that Julian Assange helped Chelsea Manning crack a password in order to access certain files, but no evidence of that happening or even being successful has been shown. Not only that, Manning’s own account of events state that no such password cracking ever took place.
So over the coming days, weeks, and possibly years, don’t fall for the mainstream media’s inverted narrative regarding Assange and what he has risked and lost. It’s often the ones who are persecuted that are the ones speaking the truth.
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