The
Guardian did not make a mistake in vilifying Assange without a shred
of evidence. It did what it is designed to do, says Jonathan Cook.
by
Jonathan Cook
Part
5 - A Pattern, Not an Aberration
Despite
all this, even analysts critical of The Guardian’s behavior
have shown a glaring failure to understand that its latest coverage
represents not an aberration by the paper but decisively fits with a
pattern.
Glenn
Greenwald, who once had an influential column in The Guardian
until an apparent, though unacknowledged, falling out with his
employer over the Edward Snowden revelations, wrote a series of
baffling observations about The Guardian’s latest story.
First,
he suggested it was simply evidence of The Guardian’s
long-standing (and well-documented) hostility towards Assange.
“The
Guardian, an otherwise solid and reliable paper, has such a pervasive
and unprofessionally personal hatred for Julian Assange that it has
frequently dispensed with all journalistic standards in order to
malign him.”
It was
also apparently evidence of the paper’s clickbait tendencies:
“They
[Guardian editors] knew that publishing this story would cause
partisan warriors to excitedly spread the story, and that cable news
outlets would hyperventilate over it, and that they’d reap the
rewards regardless of whether the story turned out to be true or
false.”
And
finally, in a bizarre tweet, Greenwald opined, “I hope the story
[maligning Assange] turns out true” – apparently because
maintenance of The Guardian’s reputation is more important
than Assange’s fate and the right of journalists to dig up
embarrassing secrets without fear of being imprisoned.
Source,
links:
Comments
Post a Comment