How the media, especially the Guardian helped keep Assange in jail
JVL Introduction
With the wonderful news that Julian Assange is free at last, Jonathan Cook looks back at the role that establishment media played in his long years of trial and detention in varying forms.
Cook argues here, with his usual meticulous precision, that the establishment media acted as a willing tool in a demonising narrative the US and British governments carefully crafted against Assange.
He makes clear that the US was not trying to enforce some kind of legal process: the extradition case against Assange was entirely about wreaking vengeance – and making an example of the Wikileaks founder to deter others from following him in shedding light on US state crimes.
The Guardian, in particular, does not come well out of it.
“The truth is,” asserts Cook in a stinging indictment, “with a properly adversarial media playing the role it declares for itself, as a watchdog on power, Assange could never have been disappeared for so long. He would have been freed years ago. It was the media that kept him behind bars.”
RK
This article was originally published by Substack on Wed 26 Jun 2024. Read the original here.
It was the media, led by the Guardian, that kept Julian Assange behind bars
The media’s villainy will soon be erased because it writes the script telling us what’s going on in the world
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This is brilliant. Thanks for publishing.
As so often, Jonathan Cook manages so perfectly to cut through the MSM smokescreens.
“How the media, especially the Guardian helped keep Assange in jail”
And also, the Birmingham 6.
Chris Mullin wrote that his concern about the case arose because he was approached by Peter Chippindale who had attended the trial as a reporter on the Guardian.
Crucial unasked question:
Why did the Guardian do nothing about this? It seems inconceivable that Chippindale did nothing to get his own paper interested in the subject. And so, it would be several more years before Mullin would address the issue during his editorship of Tribune.
So, well done to Chippindale and Mullin but shame on the Guardian.
Another fine article. Absolutely correct over the tawdry facts.
The Guardian and the BBC are so part of the establishment.
I have not read the Guardian for many years. Its opinionators seem to be the same bunch of jobs for life samey duds.
The BBC opinion that Julian Assange is an attention seeker is so obviously incorrect. The BBC often gets muddled anyway.
The United States has done itself harm over this affair, which most people across the world perceive as sheer nastiness.
I wonder if the arrogrant Guardian ‘journalists’ ever contemplate how their actions impacted the mental health of Mr Assange and his family, along with all the persons they branded as Antisemites, causing them misery.
Cook is spot on with his analysis, as ever. I wish we had more independent journalists like him.
Back in 1988 Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky wrote a classic book on the media (‘Manufacturing Consent’). It showed how the American press consistently told the stories that the government and large corporations wanted them to tell. There were several reasons for this (e.g. the power of owners and advertisers), but two crucial ones were that (A) it was so easy to get material to support the official line and (B) you got a barrage of flak if you didn’t! The Assange case seems to show these same forces in operation.
Thank you for this excellent report. Everyone has said what I would like to have written. I’ll only add this, The Guardian is a 2 faced tabloid!!
Negating the possibility of emotionally intelligent, honest discussion about the vital issues of our time would seem to be the true function of the Guardian and BBC.