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Wikileaks: Julian Assange, Old Media Bias And Sydney’s Anti-Free Speech Rally

JULIAN Assange is not Wikileaks. Of course, the conspiracy is that if he is undone in Sweden for that alleged rape he will soon be passed to the US for further examinations. To Sydney, then, where there is a rally in support of Assange. The WikiLeaks rally is about free speech – so long as everyone agrees with the thoughts express:

During the speeches an elderly man made his way on to the town hall’s steps and held up a series of signs in support of free speech.

However, he drifted off topic with one anti-gay sign sparking an angry response from one member of the crowd who tore the placard off him and ripped it up.

What is the campaign for if it’s not for free speech?

What Wikileaks has done is show us that the old media might not be up to the job of speaking truth to power. Jay Rosen recalls the notorious NY Times episode in which Michael Gordon and Judith Miller wrote that Saddam Hussein was buying aluminium tubes for a nuclear campaign:

Hard-liners are alarmed that American intelligence underestimated the pace and scale of Iraq’s nuclear program before Baghdad’s defeat in the gulf war. Conscious of this lapse in the past, they argue that Washington dare not wait until analysts have found hard evidence that Mr. Hussein has acquired a nuclear weapon. The first sign of a ”smoking gun,” they argue, may be a mushroom cloud. (italics added)

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Posted: 10th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)