Vanity Fair portrays WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a shrewd negotiator and master shape-shifter. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine
http://img.slate.com/id/2280157
More than anything, journalists expect a combination of trust and servility from their leakers. (...) The #Assange lesson is that if a source has the brains, the guts, and the leaks, he can take the driver’s seat and tell reporters to ride in the trunk.
COMMENT: This biased portrait reminds us of the CIA’s depiction of Mossadegh as a Communist before the coup that overthrew him. — There is abundant evidence testifying to facts that contradict Ellison’s account: — (1) Assange is not an anarchist; — (2) The organization has had a remarkable record of successes over its four year life that are never mentioned by Ellison; — (3) The notion that it “dumps raw material,” using “no standards,” is a myth; — (4) Simply maintaining the cablegate material online is a remarkable triumph in the face of a cyber-onslaught by a superpower (never mentioned by Ellison) waged in a terroristic climate in which American politicians are calling for Assange’s assassination (also never mentioned by Ellison). — Vanity Fair, it should be noted, is owned by Condé Nast, which is in turn owned by Si Newhouse’s Advance Publications, “the exemplar [of the] concentration of media ownership [that] has perverted the free flow of information in the United States,” according to the American Journalism Review. — And, as if to demonstrate that she is utterly shameless, Ellison tries to turn George Orwell’s Animal Farm against Assange at the end of her article!