Yes, Julian Assange Is A Journalist

I’m not sure I understand the Wikileaks controversy. If one of the many definitions of news is (and always has been) that it is something that someone, somewhere does not want you to know then, yes, Julian Assange is a journalist. Perhaps newsman would be a better, more strictly accurate way of putting it.

As such, it’s strange to see Americans accusing him of treason (he’s an Australian!) or William Hague complaining that the Wikileaks document-dumps put “British lives” at risk. So what?

Then there’s Jonah Goldberg complaining that a column headlined “All Quiet On the Black-Ops Front” and subtitled “Why is Julian Assange Still Alive?” has – this may shock you – been misunderstood. Acording to Goldberg he wasn’t suggesting Assange should be killed (true), merely that no-one should be surprised if he is murdered and that if peoples’ romantic/conspiratorial views of what the CIA are capable of were accurate then Assange would be dead.