Posts by Russell Brown
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The Australian casts some light on the apparent tension between The Guardian and Assange:
David Leigh, a journalist for The Guardian who has been working on the WikiLeaks material, said: "It's a great shame that more medals aren't being pinned up to the chest of the young soldier Bradley Manning, who actually got the data and is the person who is actually paying the price for it, facing 52 years in prison."
Another Guardian journalist, Nick Davies, who initially persuaded Mr Assange to work with the paper, is understood to have fallen out with him so badly that he decided not to be involved with the embassy cable coverage.
There has been tension at The Guardian over the way Mr Assange, who was originally a hacker, now portrays himself as a journalist. One reporter said: "He wasn't a participant in the journalistic process, he was a participant in the technical process."
Davies, the author of Flat Earth News, wrote The Guardian story that revealed the detailed allegations against Assange, The Independent says:
It is understood that there was a debate inside the paper about whether, and how, to run the article, but that, in the end, The Guardian decided to publish. A close friend said yesterday that Mr Assange regarded the article as "an attack by somebody who he'd hope not to receive it from".
Well, he's still got Jemima Khan and Bianca Jagger ...
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Hard News: The Wellington Cables, in reply to giovanni tiso,
That’s how you spell “Herceptin”. [EDIT – ops, hadn’t scrolled up as far as Danyl’s post.]
Yes, although Roche is a Swiss company. They presumably have to fund their own PR plan, rather than having it covered by their government's foreign service.
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Hard News: The Wellington Cables, in reply to Sacha,
So which people from our health sector were invited into the programme, like the journos who were named last week?
I think that's far more damning than last week's story.
It's one thing to promote understanding of your social and political culture through an exchange scheme. Quite another to use an exchange scheme as a de facto corporate lobbying tool.
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Simon Grigg,
One, too, could argue that given 60 years of quite brutal sanctions, the Cuban health system – and the care they offer freely to much of the third world – is in surprisingly good shape.
Yes. At a quick glance at the figures, it seems like they do that by virtue of the kind of public health strategising that's hard to do in a fully private system. The latest drug or machine that goes ping isn't the be-all and end-all.
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
I’m partway through a book which quotes a senior adviser saying that Cheney was desperately looking through intelligence for an excuse to get into Iraq.
No! Really?
But yes. I think there's enough evidence now to establish that the making of the case for Iraq does amount to an actual conspiracy.
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Simon Grigg,
I don’t think that’s the case but there is enough evidence, indisputable stuff, of CIA involvement in the odd international incident that such should not be dismissed either. There is a body count.
A predisposition is not evidence though. It’s very possible there was a strategy to try and rebut Moore’s claims, but it’s worth bearing in mind that some of the rebuttal was correct.
And, of course, there’s pretty much any discussion in blog comments (not here, thankfully) about the rape allegations against Assange. Even after the police evidence has been published in some detail, even after Assange’s own Wikileaks colleagues have told journalists it is not a honeytrap or anything like it, people queue up to recite the same limited set of “facts” about the case. (And then of course, there’s John Pilger, in full Chris Trotter mode, on “the false tribunes of feminism”. WTF?)
Under this column, someone even accuses The Guardian of “persecuting” Assange. Yes, The Guardian: the paper whose editors put themselves on the line for Wikileaks, whose innovative work with Wikileaks data has shown there are new ways to tell stories. It’s crazy and unpleasant and speaks of a cult of personality.
They’re turning into the people they think they despise – only this time it’s Sweden they’re hating on, rather than the surrender monkeys of France. If this has been a CIA plot to make swathes of the “liberal” Left look hateful and conspiratorial, it’s been a brilliant success.
Again, that Guardian editorial I linked to upthread. It embraces a comparison between Assange and John Wilkes, who championed a free press in the 18th Century, but whose sexual activiies became news:
It is impossible to make judgments about what happened in private circumstances: that will be for the Swedish courts eventually to decide. But it is wrong that the notion that the allegations are simply a conspiracy or smear should go unexamined. Having been given access to the relevant Swedish police papers – including the womens’ claims and Assange’s rebuttal – we have felt it right to present a brief summary of the nature of the complaints, together with Assange’s response. It is unusual for a sex offence case to be presented outside of the judicial process in such a manner, but then it is unheard of for a defendant, his legal team and supporters to so vehemently and publicly attack women at the heart of a rape case.
As with Wilkes, none of this should have any bearing on the wider question of Assange’s role in bringing the cables into the open.
I must say, I deeply admire The Guardian’s approach to these matters.
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Seriatim,
Oh dear James - shame! The Guardian has already posted the below clarifying that this was a standard CIA porky, exposed in WikiLeaks cables, which their own journalists failed to investigate properly!
Which goes to show, again, that these communications shouldn't necessarily be regarded as factual.
I'd be careful about accepting Moore's account without question though (in fact, you could call that a general rule). As this 2007 Guardian story explains, Cuba achieves very well on a relatively tiny health budget -- largely through an inspired public healthy strategy -- but the shiny new hospitals of the kind Moore showed off in Sicko are for officials and foreigners. It seems that part of the cable in question is not inaccurate.
So perhaps we could stop declaring everything we don't like to be a CIA plot.
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Hard News: The Wellington Cables, in reply to Simon Grigg,
That seems to be been the case for a while. The SMH has had access to regional stuff for at least the past week
And Nicky Hager apparently has the lot.
But I was referring more to the apparent note of caution from The Guardian. It wasn't clear whether the editorial was implying that other news organisations might not be as capable as it has been in placing the cables in context, redacting sensitive information, etc -- or that Wikileaks might become reckless.
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A very good Guardian editorial concludes on an interesting note:
The broader plan of WikiLeaks is to move beyond the arrangement with the five newspapers currently involved, and to partner with other news organisations who can highlight stories of particular interest to specific regions. We hope that, if so, it is done with due care to anything that might jeopardise individuals or sensitive ongoing operations. The process of editing, contextualising, explanation and redaction is a painstaking one. It is part of the craft of journalism. Journalism is also about disclosure. It is at its best when it is the disclosure of matters of high public interest. Judge Assange on that score, as much as any other.
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Hard News: The Wellington Cables, in reply to nzlemming,
Bady is at it again (I know, I know, I should just turn my PAS account into his RSS feed), this time specifically on the fissures in the debate on the merit of the charges against Assange. He concludes thusly, although as always you have to read the whole argument.
The Guardian has viewed the police documents and covers the allegations against Assange in detail. Nice to have an account that's not spin from Assange's lawyers.
I hope certain people pay attention to this part:
The co-ordinator of the WikiLeaks group in Stockholm, who is a close colleague of Assange and who also knows both women, told the Guardian: "This is a normal police investigation. Let the police find out what actually happened. Of course, the enemies of WikiLeaks may try to use this, but it begins with the two women and Julian. It is not the CIA sending a woman in a short skirt."