> Why do people insist on calling Assange a journalist?
Because he directed Wikileaks, who report any number of facts in the public interest and helped in revealing a few substantial stories. Wikileaks involvement in the Snowden revelations springs to mind, that bought a conspiracy with global implications to light. Probably one of the most consequential pieces of journalism in history except maybe the Panama papers.
If your definition of journalism is something other than bringing important truths to the public eye, then it is weak and we can all do without it.
"... the WikiLeaks team has racked up numerous awards for journalism over the years, including the Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism (2011), the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (2011), the International Piero Passetti Journalism Prize of the National Union of Italian Journalists (2011), the Jose Couso Press Freedom Award (2011), the Brazillian Press Association Human Rights Award (2013), and the Kazakstan Union of Journalists Top Prize (2014).
The claim that Assange is “not a journalist” is both an irrelevant red herring and a self-evident falsehood. It is made not by people with an interest in maintaining a small and specific linguistic understanding of what the word journalism means, but by people who want to see Julian Assange imprisoned by the same government which tortured Chelsea Manning because he made them feel emotionally upset. It’s a fact-free argument made entirely in bad faith for inexcusable motives: the desire to see a journalist imprisoned for telling the truth.
When someone says “Assange isn’t a journalist”, they aren’t telling you what Assange is. They’re showing you what they are. "
How about Woodward/Bernstein? Or Obermayer/Obermaier? Or Murrow? Rachel Carson? Cronkite? Frances FitzGerald? I could go on, but my point is putting journalist in scare quotes is insulting to the thousands of brave men and women who have spoken truth to power and risked everything to expose corruption.
You're telling me that Rachel Carson was a CIA asset? That Murrow's withering criticism of McCarthy was somehow a plot by US intelligence? That a German newspaper was coordinating with spooks to expose Mossack Fonseca? I find that orders of magnitude harder to believe than that they were good people dedicated to the truth.
>You're telling me that Rachel Carson was a CIA asset?
Ok. Maybe not her.
> Murrow's withering criticism of McCarthy was somehow a plot by US intelligence?
Of course. When you find weakness of a side, you don't expose it to the public. You let them be the "other side" while you blackmail them for power. McCarthy was not a good politician and he bit more than he could chew. So, there was a power shift that happened internally at that time because of McCarthy's work... but he had to be silenced and curbed because of how he handled things.
>That a German newspaper was coordinating with spooks to expose Mossack Fonseca?
Yes, definitely. If you don't know that CIA was involved in Panama Papers, you know nothing.
>I find that orders of magnitude harder to believe than that they were good people dedicated to the truth.
Oh I belive a lot of people are dedicated to the truth. They just don't end up doing very well when the truth is not good for the establishment. Look at Assange or Snowden... or even McCarthy.
Because the FBI accused him of being a hostile foreign intelligence agency and could skip a lot of restrictions in charging him. Assange argued he was a journalist and the USA law protects his actions in the US.
If that is the case, the term sadly becomes meaningless then.
Because then any random person with a smartphone and a social media account can claim to be a journalist and make a video (or a tweet?) claiming anything and everything. That Bill Gates is building a zombie army. That they found evidence of rampant election fraud, subscribe, hit the bell icon, and come back next week when they'll release the kraken!
Obviously needing certification would also be a bad thing, because then who does the certification, and will they be neutral? ("Welcome to Russian Journalism Certification. First question: what do you think about Vladimir Putin?")
Because he directed Wikileaks, who report any number of facts in the public interest and helped in revealing a few substantial stories. Wikileaks involvement in the Snowden revelations springs to mind, that bought a conspiracy with global implications to light. Probably one of the most consequential pieces of journalism in history except maybe the Panama papers.
If your definition of journalism is something other than bringing important truths to the public eye, then it is weak and we can all do without it.