Nope, Julian Assange still ain't a journo

Counterpunch publisher writer (for some reason, I thought he had taken over after Alec died) Andrew Cockburn can make that claim in short form on his Substack, or in long form at Harper's, but it still ain't true.

It hasn't been true for some time.

And, I'm far from alone in saying it.

To quote what I posted on his Substack:

I agree with CPJ, and Dick Tofel, formerly of Pro Publica, and others. He's not a journalist.

The CPJ, in saying he's not a journo (I remember reading their piece a couple of years ago, Andrew) explicitly said he's due full legal due process, like any other person. Which, of course, he's not getting. But, his prison treatment is itself independent of the issue of whether or not he's a journo, so raising it with the linkage to the journalism issue is to some degree a red herring. Per the people noted above, and myself?

If he was a journo pre-Seth Rich (Tofel says he wasn't ever since he incited criminal behavior by Manning, and he may be right), he certainly forfeited any claim to be a journalist after goosing the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.

I think linked to one of my blog posts about this issue, the one that's most in depth.

I then, from another blog post of mine, cited words of Cockburn's own managing editor at Counterpunch, Jeff St. Clair, about Seth Rich in 2019:

I think Julian Assange’s lowest moment was his inculcation of the Seth Rich conspiracy in some of the more credulous precincts of the Left. The strangest part of the affair is that if the preposterous Rich conspiracy had proved true, it meant that Assange would have outed his source.

Now, tis true that St. Clair uses the word "source," which is often used in connection with journalism. I don't know his stance on this issue. I do know that Cockburn, by failing to address the big issue in his Harper's piece, is part of those more credulous precincts on this issue. Indeed, Cockburn needs some extended direct quoting on this issue, because he's engaging in extended tap-dancing on the Seth Rich conspiracy theory and Assange goosing it.

This?

The idea that Assange had been acting on behalf of both Putin and Trump inescapably damned him in the eyes of the Democratic establishment. But amid the uproar—as figures on the right tried to pin the leaks on a DNC employee who had been murdered in an apparent street robbery—significant information was withheld from the public by the House Committee on Intelligence. Testifying under oath in a closed-door session before the committee in 2017, CrowdStrike’s chief security officer Shawn Henry admitted that he had no “concrete evidence” that the Russians had stolen the emails, or indeed that anyone had hacked the DNC’s system. This crucial interview remained locked away until 2020.

First of all, note that Cockburn never even mentions Rich's name, as part of his tap-dance, not in that quoted portion of a paragraph, nor in the full article. Second, there was plenty of other investigative water under the bridge in that 2017-2020 period. Third, as admitted by Republican congresscritter Mike McCaul, the RNC was also hacked, the No. 1 counterfactual fact undermining the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.

As for issues Cockburn does cite? The redaction issue? Sure, you can cite early Assange on that, but long before he became a Russian conduit in 2016, he had stopped putting in any effort at redaction.

As for whether or not Assange assisted Manning? People like Tofel have never claimed that, just that he "suborned," or whatever word you'll use, into criminal activity, which the likes of Woodward and Bernstein did NOT do with Mark Felt, as Tofel explicitly notes.

And, 10 minutes after I dropped my comments above on Wednesday, the first respondent popped up, with this:

Assange is absolutely a journalist, and is specifically being persecuted with regard to his journalistic activities in publishing evidence of US war crimes in 2010. It has nothing to do with 2016, or the election. Your grudge has no relevance here.

Furthermore, your arbitrary distinction between Assange's professional label and his imprisonment proves that you simply don't know what you're talking about. As Craig Murray has pointed out, the US has openly admitted in court that it plans to go after journalists with the Espionage Act from here on out.

My response?

Really? I have a grudge? News to me.

Second, I know what Craig Murray and others have said. Related? The Espionage Act can be arbitrarily applied to non-journalists as well as journalists. Therefor, your claim that this is an arbitrary distinction about Assange's professional label, re the Espionage Act, is also a red herring.

As for the 2016 election? I'm a non-duopolist leftist who didn't vote for either Clinton or Trump, so your assumption there is based on facts not in evidence!

Did Trump use, and is Biden using, Espionage Act charges against Assange to attack journalism? It's quite possible, certainly in Trump's case. Still doesn't make Assange himself a journalist. As I told the Thomas Cain person, Espionage Act charges can be levied against anyone, and they have been in the past. In fact, before the 21st century, such charges basically weren't filed against journalists at all.

In addition, re the issue of espionage, as I have blogged before, Craig Murray his own self has indicated Assange knew something of the provenance of the DNC emails by the end of 2016. If it were before the last was released by him, that would be at minimum an espionage complicity issue.

Per the title of the Harper's piece, is it arguable that the media has failed Assange? Certainly. Is it also arguable that Assange has failed the media? Arguably in general and absolutely so in Russia, with Assange basically refusing to do any WikiLeaks type work there or work with anybody there. Cockburn knows that, too. That, too, argues against him being a journalist from where I sit.

I venture that, like Sy Hersh, albeit on a smaller scale, this will draw rats out of the woodwork.

And I was right! Here's Feral Finster:

I had no idea that freedom of speech and the press applied solely to "journalists" or to those who parroted the approved pieties.

Total strawmanning of both me and CPJ, and ignoring my opening comment. Finster subscribes (paid) to Freddie deBoer and Matt Taibbi/flunkey Walter Kirn.