{"id":46424,"date":"2019-05-27T18:58:45","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T23:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46424"},"modified":"2019-05-27T18:58:48","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T23:58:48","slug":"tide-of-public-opinion-is-turning-in-assanges-favor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46424","title":{"rendered":"Tide of Public Opinion is Turning in Assange\u2019s Favor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tide of Public Opinion is Turning in Assange\u2019s Favor<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Corporate media & some politicos who opposed Assange after the 2016 election have radically changed their tune, favorably influencing public opinion after the Espionage Act indictment of the WikiLeak<\/em>\u2018s founder, reports Joe Lauria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T<\/strong>he indictment of Julian Assange under the Espionage Act has profoundly affected press coverage of the\u00a0WikiLeaks<\/em>\u00a0founder, with much of the media turning suddenly and decisively in his favor after \u00a0years of vilifying him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sharp change has also come from some politicians, and significantly, from two Justice Department prosecutors who went public to express their dissent<\/a> about using the Espionage Act to indict Assange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the extent that public opinion matters, the sea-change in coverage could have an effect<\/a> on the British or Swedish governments\u2019 decision to extradite Assange to the United States to face the charges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Used to Be a Russian Agent<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election establishment media, fueled by the Mueller probe, has essentially branded<\/a> Assange a Russian agent who worked to undermine American democracy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Focusing on his personality rather than his work, the media mostly cheered<\/a> his arrest by British police on April 11 after his political asylum was illegally revoked by Ecuador in its London embassy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assange\u2019s initial indictment<\/a> for conspiracy to intrude into a government computer was portrayed<\/a> by corporate media as the work of a \u201chacker\u201d and not a journalist, who doesn\u2019t merit First Amendment protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the superseding indictment<\/a> under the Espionage Act last Thursday has changed all that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than criminal activity, the indictment actually describes routine journalistic work, such as encouraging sources to turn over sensitive information and hiding a source\u2019s identity.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the Trump administration has crossed the red line criminalizing \u00a0what establishment journalists do all the time, establishment journalists have come full-square against the indictment and behind Assange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tide of Public Opinion is Turning in Assange\u2019s Favor Corporate media & some politicos who opposed Assange after the 2016 election have radically changed their tune, favorably influencing public opinion after the Espionage Act indictment of the WikiLeak\u2018s founder, reports Joe Lauria. The indictment of Julian Assange under the Espionage Act has profoundly affected press coverage […]<\/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":[6963,6677,12261,2001,4344],"class_list":["post-46424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-consortium-news","tag-espionage-act","tag-joe-lauria","tag-julian-assange","tag-public-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46424","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=46424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46425,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46424\/revisions\/46425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}