Door de weigering Assange te
verdedigen, tonen de reguliere media hun ware gezicht, aldus de kop
van een artikel van Caitlin Johnstone op Media.com en hieronder
overgenomen van Anti-Media. Een top advocaat van de New York Times
(NYT), David McCraw waarschuwde een zaal vol rechters dat de
vervolging van WikiLeaks journalist Julian Assange een gevaarlijk
precedent zal scheppen en zou kunnen eindigen met het beschadigen van de reguliere (massa-) media….. (ha! ha! ha! Wat er nog te beschadigen is aan de reguliere media is me een raadsel, gezien het enorme gehalte aan nepnieuws [‘fake news] en de leugens die daar dag in dag uit ten toon worden gespreid…..)
Volgens McCraw zullen wetshandhavers
uiteindelijk weinig verschil kunnen zien tussen een internetplatform
als WikiLeaks en mediaorganen als de New York Times en de Washington
Post (WaPo)….. Lullig werden de woorden van McCraw niet
gepubliceerd in ‘zijn eigen’ NYT….. (!!) Echter zolang de reguliere media de leugens van politiek en geheime diensten maar blijven herhalen, zal er geen vuiltje aan de lucht zijn…..
Het publiceren van o.a. uitgelekte gegevens die geheim
werden gehouden voor het volk, is in feite de taak van de echte
journalistiek, immers het is de taak van de journalistiek om de
machthebbers te controleren, het volk daarover in te lichten* en het publiek tevens te leren kritisch naar de machthebbers te kijken…..
Daar wringt dan ook de schoen aldus Johnstone, de reguliere media hebben deze taken al lang bij het
grofvuil gezet en schikken zich naar de eisen van overheid en degenen
die deze media in handen hebben, miljardairs en beursgenoteerde
bedrijven……… Niet voor niets dat de journalisten van de reguliere media Assange keer op keer demoniseren en de leugens van de politiek en geheime diensten als CIA en FBI (notoire leugenaars) over bijvoorbeeld de zogenaamde bemoeienis van Rusland met de VS verkiezingen blijven herhalen, ook al is er geen nanometer bewijs voor……
Daarover gesproken: hoorde onlangs een Belgische ‘journalist’ die het gore lef had te zeggen dat hij de ‘stapel aan bewijzen’ voor die Russische inmenging met de VS presidentsverkiezingen had gelezen, een keiharde leugen, daar die bewijzen (nog steeds) niet bestaan…..
Lees deze korte mooie analyse van
Caitlin Johnstone:
In
Refusing to Defend Assange, Mainstream Media Exposes Its True Nature
July
29, 2018 at 10:24 pm
Written
by Caitlin
Johnstone
(CJ Opinion) — Last
Tuesday a top lawyer for the New
York Times named
David McCraw warned
a room full of judges that
the prosecution of Julian Assange for WikiLeaks publications would
set a very dangerous precedent which would end up hurting mainstream
news media outlets like NYT, the Washington
Post,
and other outlets which publish secret government documents.
“I
think the prosecution of him would be a very, very bad precedent for
publishers,” McCraw said. “From that incident, from everything I
know, he’s sort of in a classic publisher’s position and I think
the law would have a very hard time drawing a distinction between The
New York Times and WikiLeaks.”
Do
you know where I read about this? Not in the New
York Times.
“Curiously,
as of this writing, McCraw’s words have found no mention in
the Times itself,”
activist Ray McGovern wrote for
the alternative media outlet Consortium
News.
“In recent years, the newspaper has shown a marked proclivity to
avoid printing anything that might risk its front row seat at the
government trough.”
So
let’s unpack that a bit. It is now public knowledge that the
Ecuadorian government is actively seeking to turn Assange over to be
arrested by the British government. This was initially reported
by RT,
then independently confirmed
by The
Intercept,
and is today full mainstream public knowledge being reported by
mainstream outlets like CNN.
It is also public knowledge that Assange’s asylum was granted by
the Ecuadorian government due
to a feared attempt to extradite him to
the United States and prosecute
him for WikiLeaks publications.
Everyone from President Donald
Trump to
Attorney General Jeff
Sessions to
now-Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo to
ranking House Intelligence Committee member Adam
Schiff to
Democratic members
of the US Senate have
made public statements clearly indicating that there is a US
government interest in getting Assange out of the shelter of
political asylum and into prison.
The New
York Times is
aware of this, and as evidenced by McCraw’s comments it is also
aware of the dangerous precedent that such a prosecution would set
for all news media publications. The New
York Times editorial
staff are aware that the US government prosecuting a publisher for
publishing important documents that had been hidden from the public
would make it impossible for the Times to
publish the same kind of material without fear of the same legal
repercussions. It is aware that the maneuvers being taken against
Assange present a very real existential threat to the possibility of
real journalism and holding power to account.
You
might think, therefore, that we’d be seeing a flood of analyses and
op-eds from the New
York Times aggressively
condemning any movement toward the prosecution of Julian Assange. You
might expect all media outlets in America to be constantly sounding
the alarm about this, especially since the threat is coming from the
Trump administration, which outlets like the New
York Timesare
always eager to circulate dire warnings about. You might expect every
talking head on CNN and NBC to be ominously citing Assange as the
clearest and most egregious case yet of Trump’s infamous “war on
the free press”. Leaving aside the issues of morality, compassion
and human rights that come with Assange’s case, you might think
that if for no other reason than sheer unenlightened self interest
they’d be loudly and aggressively defending him.
And
yet, they don’t. And the fact that they don’t shows us what they
really are.
Theoretically,
journalism is meant to help create an informed populace and hold
power to account. That’s why it’s the only profession explicitly
named in the United States Constitution, and why freedom of the press
has enjoyed such constitutional protections throughout US
history. The press today is failing to protect Julian Assange
because it has no intention of creating an informed populace or
holding power to account.
This
is not to suggest the existence of some grand, secret conspiracy
among US journalists. It’s just a simple fact that plutocrats own
most of the US news media and hire the people who run it, which has
naturally created an environment where the best way to advance one’s
career is to remain perpetually inoffensive to the establishment upon
which plutocrats have built their respective empires. This is why you
see ambitious reporters on Twitter falling all over themselves to be
the first with a pithy line that advances establishment agendas
whenever breaking news presents an opportunity to do so; they are
aware that their social media presence is being assessed by potential
employers and allies for establishment loyalism. This also why so
many of those aspiring journalists attack Assange and WikiLeaks
whenever possible.
“Everyone
hoping to gain admission to the cultural elite must now strenuously
cultivate their social media so as to avoid controversy,”
journalist Michael Tracey observed recently.
“Eventually they will internalize controversy-avoidance as a
virtue, not a societal imposition. Result: a more boring, conformist
elite culture.”
A
great way for an aspiring journalist to avoid controversy is to
never, ever defend Assange or WikiLeaks on social media or in any
media outlet, and certainly under no circumstances allow yourself to
look like the sort of journo who might someday publish the sorts of
materials that WikiLeaks publishes. An excellent way to prove
yourself is to become yet another author of yet another one of the
many, many smear pieces that have been written about Assange and
WikiLeaks.
Mainstream
media outlets and those who thrive within them have no intention of
rocking the boat and losing their hard-earned privilege and access.
Conservative mass media will continue to defend the US president, and
liberal media will continue to defend the CIA and the FBI. Both will
help advance war, ecocide, military expansionism, surveillance and
police militarization, and none will leak anything that is damaging
to the power structures that they have learned to serve. They will
remain innocuous, uncontroversial defenders of the rich and powerful
at all times.
Meanwhile,
alternative media outlets are defending Assange ferociously. Just
today I’ve seen articles from Consortium
News, World
Socialist Website, Disobedient
Media, Antiwar and Common
Dreams decrying
the persecution of the most important government transparency
advocate living today. Alternative media outlets and independent
writers aren’t bound by establishment servitude, so the value of
WikiLeaks is clear as day. One’s eyes are only blinded to the
pernicious behaviors of power when power is signing one’s paycheck.
Mass
media outlets in America and around the world have fully discredited
themselves with their failure to defend a publisher who actually
holds power to account and brings facts into the light of truth to
create an informed populace. Every day that goes by where they don’t
unequivocally condemn any attempt to prosecute Assange is another day
in the pile of evidence that corporate media outlets serve power and
not truth. Their silence is a tacit admission that they are nothing
other than stenographers and propagandists for the most powerful
forces on earth.
Support
Caitlin’s work on Patreon or Paypal.
Opinion
by Caitlin
Johnstone /
Republished with permission / Medium / Report
a typo
=====================================
* In Nederland durfde de zwaar over een keeshondendrol getilde zakkenwasser Max van Weezel, die zich godbetert journalist durft te noemen, te zeggen ‘dat hij zich voor kan stellen bepaalde zaken niet te publiceren…….’ Ondanks deze uitspraak en een onnoemelijk aantal andere ‘journalistieke’ uitglijders, wordt deze kwezel geëerd door het grootste deel van de andere Nederlandse ‘journalisten…’ Wat dan weer genoeg zegt over ‘de kwaliteit’ van de Nederlandse reguliere journalistiek…… Voor berichten met blunders van van Weezel, klik op het label met zijn naam, direct onder dit bericht. (als na een aantal berichten het laatste telkens wordt herhaald, even opnieuw op dat label klikken en wel die onder het laatst gelezen bericht)
PS: het is vrijwel zeker dat Ecuador Assange op de Londense straat (hij zit al jaren in de ambassade van Ecuador in Londen) zal zetten en hij na zijn arrestatie zal worden uitgeleverd aan VS……
Zie ook:
‘Julian Assange, valse beschuldigingen, Big Brother en VS steun voor terrorisme‘
‘Westerse massamedia lopen aan de leiband van plutocraten, de neoliberale politiek en geheime diensten‘
‘Russiagate en Assange: The Guardian wordt nu zelfs door collega’s voor zot uitgemaakt‘
‘The Guardian: ondanks een enorme misser (fake news) gaat men door met de valse beschuldigingen t.a.v. Assange……‘
‘WikiLeaks belooft The Guardian 1 miljoen dollar als het haar leugens i.z. Assange en Russiagate kan bewijzen…….‘
‘Julian Assange gedemoniseerd door media die hem zouden moeten steunen, waren ze bevolkt geweest door echte journalisten……..‘
‘WikiLeaks toont aan dat VS en GB een gezamenlijke gewelddadige en bedrieglijke buitenlandpolitiek voeren‘
‘De prijs op het hoofd van Julian Assange: 1 miljard dollar…..‘
‘Assange kan niet voor spionage worden vervolgd, immers hij is journalist >> aldus Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers) in een video‘
‘Westerse bevolkingen worden bespeeld door regeringen, massamedia, grote bedrijven, financiële instellingen en geheime diensten……‘
‘Assange is journalist en zou alleen daarom al niet mogen worden vervolgd, een artikel o.a. voor de huidige ‘journalisten’ van de reguliere media en de gebruikers van die media‘
‘WhiteHouse: US, Ecuador Coordinating About Future Of Assange Asylum‘
‘Stop de isolatie van Julian Assange!’
‘JulianAssange (Wikileaks) haalt hypocriete Britse regering onderuit voorwijzen op belang van vrije en onafhankelijke media‘
‘Volkskrant en Nieuwsuur Fake News over ‘Russische hacks…..’‘
‘VS waarschuwde regering van Zweden voor Wikileaks in aanloop verkiezingen, Assange ‘moest en zou hangen’, ofwel de zoveelste VS manipulatie van verkiezingen elders……‘
