I am Julian Assange.
James Moore, December 7, 2010
LINK

I want information so that I can hold my government accountable. If my country acts improperly and in my name, I want the proof. I want to know if there actually is no evidence proving weapons of mass destruction. I want to know if America is working with Israel to overthrow Iran’s leadership. I want data that has not been spun by reporters that work for publishers and broadcasters with political and business goals that conflict with the facts. I want to know.

I am Julian Assange because I know unfettered information is valuable to democracy and a peaceful world. I can make the best decisions with the most knowledge. I can vote for the best candidates. I can support the smartest policies to help my country and the world. I am not naïve; I know that not every operation can be transparent but I have a right to know its outcome and how it has affected my country and me.

I do not believe Julian Assange has done anything wrong. The cables that have been published have all been printed in newspapers and redacted to protect individuals at risk. I do not want my country to prosecute a man whose actions are changing the way we get information and how we make critical decisions. I now know that my president and my country’s military have not been honest about the war in Afghanistan. I know that my country has killed civilians and that we have refused to acknowledge our mistakes. I have learned that our allies are secretly consorting with our enemies.
I am also Pfc. Bradley Manning. I know that if I saw the disturbing information come across my desk that I would have confronted the conflict between my oath of service to my country and the immorality of its behavior. I do not believe I would have been able to ignore American helicopters gunning down journalists carrying cameras. I believe I would have acted on my conscience and found a way to reveal the facts. There was a reporter at the My Lai massacre in Vietnam but there was only a gun camera on the US helicopter in Iraq. And the Internet. And Bradley Manning.

I believe that governments are out of control and citizens have a decreasing belief that they can influence decisions. WikiLeaks and the Internet are empowering individuals and groups with information. Julian Assange and Bradley Manning are the first two faces and voices in a crowd that will soon be too big to control. Their arrests and charges and even prosecution will only spawn a broader resistance against war and deception and corruption. The Internet is now the reporter. This is the way the world is. I do not want to hear that there will always be wars and spying and death. I want information to prevent them and to build peace.

I am saddened that Australia’s government is once more acting as a lapdog for American interests and is not demanding sovereign rights for one of its citizens. I am also distressed that the president of my country who ran for office promising a transparent government is trying to find a way to prosecute a foreign national, and is preventing Pfc Manning from speaking with his family. WikiLeaks has shown there is an America in civics textbooks and an America that functions differently in the real world. Adequate information might move us closer to the ideal. I no longer trust my president. I do not trust my congress. I place my trust in facts and I do not get them from most of the media. But I still want to know.
I am Julian Assange. And if you care about the truth, you are, too.

CNN: Ray McGovern Defends Julian Assange

WikiLeaks and the Myth of Objective Journalism
LINK

“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.” – Henry Anatole Grunwald
There is a very simple reason WikiLeaks has sent a furious storm of outrage across the globe and it has very little to do with diplomatic impropriety. It is this: The public is uninformed because of inadequate journalism. Consumers of information have little more to digest than Kim Kardashian’s latest paramour or the size of Mark Zuckerberg’s jet. Very few publishers or broadcasters post reporters to foreign datelines and give them time to develop relationships that lead to information. Consequently, journalism is atrophying from the extremities inward and the small heart it has will soon become even more endangered.

Hero in Disguise?

So, long live WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. And if Pfc. Bradley Manning is the leaker, he deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Good government, if such a thing exists, is the product of transparency. Americans have very little idea of the back-stories that lead to the events they see on the nightly news or read about on the net. How did such messes end up being such messes? If journalism were functioning at appropriate levels, there would have been stories that reported some of the information contained in the cables now published around the globe. If my government is giving away suitcases of cash to foreign leaders, I damn sure have a right to know there is a diplomatic thug sucking away my tax dollars on false promises. I want to know if the leader of a country getting billions in foreign aid from the US is involved in drug trafficking. The fact that a few Arab countries are very concerned about Iran’s nuclear capabilities might have helped build political support for the US-Israeli position against the construction of uranium gas separators.
Secrecy tends to lead to disaster and there are several object lessons to study as a result of American adventures abroad. Saddam Hussein was Donald Rumsfeld’s and Ronald Reagan’s secret friend as long as he was bombing and gassing Iranians to the east. Secrecy led to Iran-Contra and back door dealing in arms to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua, who did not have the support of the country’s population and were eventually defeated. There are, of course, countless other examples ranging from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Bay of Pigs and the information contained in the Pentagon Papers, and, uh, of course, the lies about WMD that propagated our current misadventure in Iraq. Democracy ought not be bribing and lying in the name of democracy.

Hero in Uniform?

The horror over WikiLeaks, which is being expressed mostly by inept diplomats, is disingenuous in the extreme. The consistent claims that lives are being endangered by the information borders on the hilarious. How many lives have been lost to erroneous, yet secret information that led to our invasion of Iraq? If WikiLeaks had been around in 2003 the public might have been well armed with information to create political resistance to W’s folly in the ancient deserts. It is, of course, of equal absurdity to suggest there is no need for clandestine operations. But taxpayers and voters tend to acquire their information after the consequences of secret government endeavors, and, obviously, that is a bit late to be of preventive value.

And where is journalism in all of this? Not only has it lost resources and a bit of will to cover international affairs, the craft of reporting has surrendered most of its sense of balance and fairness. Objectivity has never existed. Stories have always been framed for purpose and over-dramatized because reporters want to lead a newscast or be above the fold on the front page. Judy Miller’s incompetent reporting, and the New York Times, pathetic editing of her work turned the paper into a trumpet leading troops to war. She used third hand sources confirmed by a military and a White House that wanted war, a process one intel agent told me was akin to “shouting in a garbage can.” A viewer must watch TV closely or read stories with extreme skepticism for any number of reasons, which is why we need WikiLeaks and its unvarnished and unframed data.

Here’s why journalism is, in the end, inadequate. Reporters cannot be objective because they are a product of their experiences. They cannot ignore their upbringing, socio-economic status, circle of friends, personal self-interests, and the viability of the employers they serve. Regardless of what we might think, an African-American reporter is more likely to write with sensitivity about the Civil Rights movement than is an anglo Southern male from rural Alabama. Their perceptions of the event have a great probability of being diametrically opposed based upon what they heard from parents and peers as they were coming of age.

How is this manifested on TV and in print? In the previous administration, there was a budget bill that included a number of earmarks but also some critical funding for up-armoring military vehicles in Iraq. Democrats voted against the bill because of the abundance of pork and, primarily, because the money going to funding the up-armoring was considered wildly inadequate. Republicans voted for the measure and derided Democrats for abandoning our troops. The headlines on this story, inevitably, reflected the political tilt of the broadcaster or publisher. MSNBC suggested conservatives were cheating our soldiers by wasting money on projects in the districts of powerful congressmen. On FOX News, however, producers framed the story by saying, “Democrats vote against a bill that would provide further protection for US troops in Iraq.” Neither story was completely accurate but they both demonstrate why journalism is not fair in America and why, indeed, it may be irretrievably broken. Objectivity may be a myth but fairness is an achievable goal. But neither will happen without information that goes un-spun by special interests.
Which is why, for the time being, we all need WikiLeaks.

About the Author: James Moore is a senior strategic communications consultant, a best-selling author, and and Emmy-winning TV correspondent. His consulting practice specializes in crisis communications and public relations for businesses.