8 Smears And Misconceptions About WikiLeaks Spread By the Media

Hissyspit

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Fri Dec-31-10 04:57 AM
Original message

8 Smears And Misconceptions About WikiLeaks Spread By the Media

http://www.alternet.org/story/149369/8_smears_and_misconceptions_about_wikileaks_spread_by_the_media

AlterNet / By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd and Tana Ganeva

8 Smears and Misconceptions About WikiLeaks Spread By the Media
Shredding the corporate media's malicious attacks on WikiLeaks.

December 31, 2010 |

The corporate media's tendency to blare misinformation and outright fabrications has been particularly egregious in coverage of WikiLeaks. As Glenn Greenwald has argued, mainstream news outlets are parroting smears and falsehoods about the whistleblower site and its founder Julian Assange, helping to perpetuate a number of "zombie lies" -- misconceptions that refuse to die no matter how much they conflict with known reality, basic logic and well-publicized information.

Here are the bogus narratives that keep appearing in newspapers and on the airwaves.

1. Fearmongering that WikiLeaks revelations will result in deaths. So far there's no evidence that WikiLeaks' revelations have cost lives. In fact, right before the cables were released, Pentagon officials admitted there were no documented instances of people being killed because of information exposed by WikiLeaks' previous document releases (and unlike the diplomatic cables, the Afghanistan files were unredacted). That's not to say that the exposure of secret government files can't somehow lead to someone, somewhere, someday, being hurt. But that's a pretty high bar to set, especially by a government engaged in multiple military operations -- many of them secret -- that lead to untold civilian casualties.

- snip -

4. Denying that WikiLeaks is a journalistic enterprise. Public officials and pundits continue to claim that WikiLeaks is not a journalistic outlet, even though it procured the scoop of a decade. But much of what WikiLeaks does is identical to the activities of other news sources. WikiLeaks receives secrets from anonymous sources, which it then reveals to the public -- news is nothing if not a checks and balances system for the government, a fundamental right of a free press. Secondly, it curates those secrets before revealing them -- a journalist selecting relevant and appropriate material from a confidential document is not that different from WikiLeaks redacting certain parts of the cables.

- snip -

6. Accusing Assange of profiting from WikiLeaks. Newspapers this week led with reports that Assange has signed a lucrative book deal, information that inspired mainstream outlets like CNN to mock Assange for "profiting" from the cables despite his anti-corporate ideology. In the CNN interview mentioned above, Jessica Yellin asked Glenn Greenwald if he had "Any qualms about the fact that he is essentially profiting from classified information." Greenwald pointed out that Assange is hardly profiting from the leaked materials, but rather trying to make a dent in the legal fees he's accruing as governments around the world go after him. Greenwald also pointed out that trying to make money from journalism is pretty routine in the profession. Bob Woodward, for example, has written multiple books based on classified documents.

7. Calling Assange a terrorist. Last week Vice-President Joe Biden, part of an administration that's overseen the escalation of the disastrous war in Afghanistan, joined Mitch McConnell and Sarah Palin in calling Assange a "terrorist." As far as we know, Assange's leaks haven't killed anyone. Nor has he threatened to perpetrate violence to promote a political agenda, the definition of terrorism. Nevertheless public officials continue to try to link Assange to terrorism in the public consciousness.

MORE