The Media Kept Assange Behind Bars

http://consortiumnews.com/2024/06/29/the-media-kept-assange-behind-bars/
Date Written:  2024-06-29
Year Published:  2024
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX25111

The establishment press acted in concert to assassinate the character of the WikiLeaks founder, making it respectable to hate him.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The establishment media acted as a willing tool in the demonising narrative the U.S. and British governments carefully crafted against Assange.
Even now, as he is reunited with his family, the BBC and others are peddling the same long-discredited lies.
...

Why were so many people persuaded Assange’s supposed character flaws were crucially important to the case? Because the establishment media - our supposed arbiters of truth - were agreed on the matter.
The smears might not have stuck so well had they been thrown only by the rightwing tabloids. But life was breathed into these claims from their endless repetition by journalists supposedly on the other side of the aisle, particularly at The Guardian.

Liberals and left-wingers were exposed to a steady flow of articles and tweets belittling Assange and his desperate, lonely struggle against the world’s sole superpower for the right not to be locked away for the rest of his life for doing journalism.
...
The even sadder truth is that the media's villainous role in keeping Assange locked up will soon be erased from the record. That is because the media are the ones writing the script we tell ourselves about what is going on in the world.

They will quickly paint themselves as saints, not sinners, in this episode. And, without more Assanges to open our eyes, we will most likely believe them.