this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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Do you have a copy of his editorial policy? I'd like to read it.
yea those large troves of archives sure do look cherry picked... (not) In any case, even if you're right, editorial bias is not a crime. Every major (and minor) news outlet has editorial bias.
So an organisation (WikiLeaks) that collects primary documents from anonymous inside sources whose identity it protects, verifies the authenticity of the documents, analyses them, collaborates with major news outlets around the world in publishing them for maximum journalistic impact, is what, "not a news outlet", just a "site"? Please.
The fact is, if not for WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning would likely not have released those documents because every news outlet she contacted first had no secure communication and didn't take her calls seriously. It was the secure dropbox WikiLeak pioneered that revolutionised journalism. Many of the legacy media have since adopted similar tech.
Julian has won numerous journalism awards. His publications helped end the Iraq war and enabled torture victims to get justice.
"The aim is justice, the method is transparancy." - Julian Assange
Please read up on the Iraqi gov decision making pre-US withdrawal and get back to me after.
They decided US troops could no longer be immune to prosecution due to what they learnt from certain docs released by WL, describing possible murders. This then spurred the US withdrawal.
It was sarcasm, the point is that they did not follow an editorial policy. At least not in the way they claimed.
https://spotify.link/vh9Y40LWFDb
TL;DL? At least, a little bit more detail, ie what they did and what they claimed the policy was.
Essentially their policy of leaking everything and anything tended to mostly apply to the US and allies of the US. This would then expose collaborators in places like Belarus and place their lives in danger. Wikileaks would say this was in the name of transparency. However in cases where they were dealing with information being leaked from Russia they would be more careful to editorialize the leaks and protect identities.
Then, aside from that, Assange partook in activities that completely deviated from journalistic protocol and entered the territory of espionage. In particular dealing with the case of chealsea manning, in her communications with Assange, Assange actively aided Chelsea in ways to access restricted information in a way that broke the law. Russian asset or not, that's a big nono.
Manning's account should reasonably be called into question, not least because she refused to testify against Assange in 2019 (and was subsequently jailed for 10 months and fined a quarter million).
WikiLeaks' audience has always been primarily English-speaking, as such their focus is going to be on news related to English-speaking countries. While you're drawing a difference between two different countries, that could just as easily be explained by a difference in time - people criticised them for their releases in Belarus as being careless and putting lives at risk, so with their later releases around Russia they were more careful.
I just feel like you never would have this impression if you'd just read WikiLeaks' publications, press releases and social media posts, as well as any other sources on the topics they cover, rather than reading articles about WikiLeaks itself. You would only think WikiLeaks is pro-Russia if you follow a pre-constructed narrative and frame the evidence in a particular way. It's very murky overall, but I don't think that viewpoint lines up objectively.