It's a contradiction to the claim he simply acted as a reporter: reporters don't release private information concerning no matter of public concern of people who are in no respect public figures.
That's a very strange definition of "faultless record." Shall we elevate the Ashley Madison password leakers to the same level of folk hero? What about a VPN that spies on its users - they never publish anything false, so any persecution is unfair, right?
We're talking about two different things. The grandparent said that Assange hasn't had to make any retractions and hasn't published any false info. This is undeniably true.
They also said "like him or not". Not everyone likes the outcome of his leaks. Many do. Many like some, but not others. Regardless, he's had a major impact on politics based on very true information Wikileaks has made available to the public.
If the Ashley Madison password leakers were helping expose corruption in the government, I'm sure some would view them as folk heroes too.