{"id":45451,"date":"2019-04-17T11:07:58","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T16:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45451"},"modified":"2019-04-17T11:08:01","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T16:08:01","slug":"45451","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45451","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2019\/04\/17\/delegitimising-journalism-the-effort-to-relabel-julian-assange\/\">Delegitimising Journalism: The Effort to Relabel Julian Assange<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2019\/03\/E995E573-828A-4065-AFAC-36573FDC2C19.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-109752\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYour honour, I represent the United States government\u201d.&nbsp; The Westminster Magistrates Court had been left with little doubt by the opening words of the legal team marshalled against the face of WikiLeaks.&nbsp; Julian Assange was being targeted by the imperium itself, an effort now only garnished by the issue of skipping bail in 2012.&nbsp;Would the case on his extradition to the US centre on the matter of free speech and the vital scrutinising role of the press?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thomas Jefferson, who had his moments of venomous tetchiness against the press outlets of his day, was clear about the role of the fourth estate.&nbsp; A government with newspapers rather than without, he argued to Edward Carrington in 1787, was fundamental so long as \u201cevery man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.\u201d&nbsp; To Thomas Cooper, he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/founders.archives.gov\/documents\/Jefferson\/01-39-02-0070\">would write<\/a>&nbsp;in November 1802 reflecting that the press was \u201cthe only tocsin of a nation.&nbsp; [When it] is completely silenced\u2026 all means of a general effort [are] taken away.\u201d&nbsp; The press provided the greatest of counterweights against oppressive tendencies, being the \u201conly security\u201d available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not so, now.&nbsp; The fourth estate has been subjected to a withering.&nbsp; The State has become canny about the nature of the hack profession, providing incentives, attempting to obtain favourable coverage, and, above all, avoiding dramatic reforms where necessary.&nbsp; An outfit like WikiLeaks is a rebuke to such efforts, to the hypocrisy of decent appearances, as it is to those in a profession long in tooth and, often, short in substance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Delegitimising Journalism: The Effort to Relabel Julian Assange Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair \u201cYour honour, I represent the United States government\u201d.&nbsp; The Westminster Magistrates Court had been left with little doubt by the opening words of the legal team marshalled against the face of WikiLeaks.&nbsp; Julian Assange was being targeted by the imperium itself, an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15948,5493,462,2001,843,880],"class_list":["post-45451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-binoy-kampmark","tag-counterpunch","tag-journalism","tag-julian-assange","tag-us-government","tag-wikileaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45452,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45451\/revisions\/45452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}