[midniteslayr]

If they are a news organization, they do a terrible job of reporting the news. They are a black box repository for leaked data. They were once a great resource for info hackers and leakers to push their data, like back in 2008/2009. But that was before news organizations started using their own secure drop servers for sources. Once WikiLeaks sources started to not go to them, they started to look for other benefactors and sources. They found it in the Russian Government.

[boomboomsubban]

Again, nothing suggesting they are knowingly working with the Russians.

Wikileaks quality has surely dropped. They are still the press, and any prosecution by the US will be over things like the Manning links, a direct attack on the freedom of the press.

[foldr]

>Again, nothing suggesting they are knowingly working with the Russians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tomorrow

[boomboomsubban]

OK, there is evidence that Assange sold the broadcast rights of a show to a Russian controlled news organization. Do you think that Jesse Ventura should also be prosecuted?

[foldr]

I don't think Assange should be prosecuted for appearing on Russian state TV. (Does anyone?)

While it may be technically true to say that he "sold the rights" to Russia Today, that's arguably a little misleading, as the show first aired on RT, and RT had exclusive initial rights to it.

[boomboomsubban]

>I don't think Assange should be prosecuted for appearing on Russian state TV. (Does anyone?

People use his television show to claim he's a paid operative of Russia. The same narrative can be made of Ventura, and any reason Assange should be prosecuted but not Ventura seems sketchy.

>While it may be technically true to say that he "sold the rights" to Russia Today, that's arguably a little misleading, as the show first aired on RT, and RT had exclusive initial rights to it.

They bought the initial rights in several languages, not exclusive, but he did not make the show for RT. That's a fairly clear distinction.

[foldr]

No-one is suggesting that Assange should be prosecuted for making a TV show, so I don't see what you're getting at with the Ventura comparison.

What you can't do is claim that it's somehow normal for someone who claims to be anti-authoritarian to appear on Russian state TV and take Kremlin money. The TV show is one of many examples of unusually close connections between Assange and the Russian state:

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wik...

[monocasa]

Was Ellsberg a terrible reporter since he managed to get the entirety of the Pentagon Papers (~4k pages) publicly released?

[Heyokamerican]

He wasn't a reporter at all; he leaked the Pentagon Papers to the NY Times (among others) which then published articles and excerpts.

[throwaway2048]

News organizations are under no (legal) obligation to not be biased. Bias does not make wikileaks not a news organization.

[stale2002]

> They are a black box repository for leaked data

Or said another way, they act as a news organization.

Modern day news organizations unfortunately have zero integrity and are unwilling to take on the people with power.