The Wikileaks Double Standard

You don’t need to share Julian Assange’s politics or his objectives to think that he’s the victim of at least one double standard. If he’s guilty of betraying secrets and endangering lives and making diplomacy more difficult and everything else then so are the publishers of the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde and every other media outlet worldwide that publishes, or republishes, anythnig to do with the leaked American diplomatic cables.

A few weeks ago I suggested that Assange really is a newsman. Even if you dispute that, however, it’s hard to see how anyone can deny that he’s a news publisher. So the State Department’s PJ Crowley made a fool of himself last week by claiming:

“Mr. Assange obviously has a particular political objective behind his activities and I think that, among other things, disqualifies him from the possibility of being considered a journalist…

“He’s not an objective observer of anything.