GregB
Thank you

I can't help with the Scientology ad, except to say journals like OLO have to survive somehow.
Jennifer.

If I may briefly interrupt my own promised continuity, I would like to add my voice to pelican's in expressing uncertainty as to what PaulL's point is when he says, in his post of Thursday, 16 December at 2010 5:46:31 PM:

"Virtually the sole reason anyone knows anything
about the wikileaks cables is because of the established
media. Without them, wikileaks would just be another
conspiracy/far left website that only true believers
would know about."

Are we talking about this website: http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/11/08STOCKHOLM748.html ? This link was posted on the thread of the General Discussion topic 'Sanctuary', here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4159#104817

So far as I can tell, this is a WikiLeaks site, and this specific page appears, or purports, to be a US diplomatic cable. I take my cue from US Senator John McCain's description of these releases as "a serious breach of [US] national security" as being a validation of their content, in general, being genuine. Why would a site publishing cables such as this be described as a conspiracy/far left website? The cables stand on their own acknowledged merit as to whatever they explain or shed light upon.

PaulL goes on to say:

"I challenge you to produce one of these cables
which has significant public interest value,
that the mainstream media is not reporting."

I suspect the very cable that has been linked to may be just such a cable. I am not aware that the MSM has so far reported upon the public interest aspect of this cable, because until the arrest of Assange was followed by the first-ever terrorist attack upon Swedish soil last Saturday, ostensibly by a Swedish citizen of Iraqi origin who had become allegedly 'radicalised' in the UK where he had been living in recent years, this cable may have been perceived to have had no significance. I submit it now does. See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4159#104883 and also: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11353#192615

The Drum video for Dec 8 you mention is here: http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/684031

Well, I think your article makes many very valid points.

However, I would have stated it more strongly. It is not enough to simply lose the bias, they need to pro-actively pursue the Government.

Most in the media seem to have forgotten they are The Fourth Estate; it is their role to inform the public about EVERYTHING they know regarding the activities of the various levels of Gov't - those other three estates.

Let me repeat, EVERYTHING!

Their primary purpose is to critically assess EVERYTHING the Government does or is planning to do and relay that information to the public! ALL OF IT!

Instead many reporters have been seduced and are complicit in the Governments misdeeds.

Thank you Jennifer, and also thanks to Antony Loewenstein for retaining your external perspective.

And thank you Julian Assange and Wikileaks for showing how high the bar needs to be raised for the media to truly operate as The Fourth Estate.

Oh, and as to my query about Scientology, I just wanted to be sure it was an advert and not an indication of alignment. Free speech supports their right to advertise but it should be clearly indicated as "not a reflection of the views of OLO". For example, rather than just saying 'advertisement' above the advert window, the expanded disclaimer I've suggested could somehow be included.

Jennifer,

You say it’s not your job to produce the vitally important information that wikileaks has provided the public.

If there was any information that was of vital importance I dare say you would have quoted it. The idea that we need to see 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables to find out that Julia Gillard was gunning for the top job a year ago is ludicrous.

You claimed that the wikileaks were “the most intriguing, and quite possibly the most revolutionary story on the planet at the moment” and claim by implication, that the ABC is covering up this momentous event.

I’ve simply tried to impress upon you the fact that the information released in these documents isn’t of vital interest to the public and won’t be revolutionary, regardless of Assange’s intentions (which you have identified accurately). I've also pointed out that Assange's motivations, which are obvious to any honest person, are derived from his hacker/annarchist philosophy. The three criticisms of Assange (anarchist, narcissist, meglomaniac) assume their importance because of the modest nature of the "revelations" he uncovers.

Any intelligent person knows that the real damage to the US and its allies, isn’t to their political system, it’s to their narrow political interests. This hurts Obama and Gillard’s re-election chances. Not their system of governance, against which Assange (and perhaps you) thinks he’s struck a blow.

You say “ .. you want some form of censorship, determined by what you consider important or otherwise.”

No. I believe that diplomacy requires secrecy at times to be effective. I believe that Manning broke the law and Assange assisted him. That’s not censorship. That’s the rule of law.

You say “it is extremely significant that this chatter is now available to anyone ...”

So are you actually arguing that ALL diplomatic communication should be open and available to everyone, including the people and organisations about whom diplomats are required to report?

Or are you suggesting that there is NO information which the gov’t should ever be able to keep from the public?

PaulL has effectively now clarified a point he seemed to be trying to make earlier in the discussion, a point that was eluding both pelican and I as to its precise nature.




PaulL's post of Saturday, 18 December 2010 at 10:42:57 AM commences with the statement:

"Jennifer,

You say it’s not your job to produce
the vitally important information that
wikileaks has provided the public."

briar rose's (article author Jennifer Wilson's) post of Friday, 17 December 2010 at 1:11:48 PM, to which PaulL was responding, commences with the words:

"PaulL
The cables are accessible to anybody and it
is not my task to do this research for people."




All becomes clear.




PaulL is here seen putting words in the mouth of Jennifer Wilson that she did not use. That amounts to an attempt to control the language of the discussion.

Further evidence as to attempting to control the language of the discussion exists in his setting up of a false dichotomy between the applicability of the term 'whistleblower' and the labeling (pathologising?) term 'anarchist'.

A person can be both of these things at once, and being an anarchist, any more than in a previous era being a communist (for which these days I suspect 'anarchist' is code), is not something that is against the law, certainly not here in Australia. (Australia had a referendum, the Constitution Alteration (Powers to deal with Communists and Communism) Referendum of 22 September 1951, which rejected any such proscription of political freedom, a fact which Australia's PM and Attorney-General each ought to have known only too well before launching into their recent premature condemnation of Assange's activities.)

Let's be clear. If anybody is the whistleblower, albeit that it may be in breach of US law, it is Bradley Manning. Assange did not assist Manning: Assange had no access to this enormous digitised archive of classified information. The most that can be said is, the (US) security breach having occurred, Assange recognised the world-wide public interest aspect of much that was contained therein.