Independent journalist Alexa O’Brien, one of the only real reporters who documented the Chelsea Manning trial from the beginning, interviews Manning’s lawyer, David Coombs, on Democracy Now!
Wikileaks
Wikileaks is one of the biggest and most important stories in the world, challenging governments and journalists alike. I’ve been writing extensively about the group since 2006, featured an exclusive interview in 2008 with founder Julian Assange and examined the myriad of issues around the website. Assange himself asked me in the early days whether I wanted to be on the group’s board to vet incoming leaks and determine their veracity before publishing. I agreed but unfortunately this never eventuated.
Direct call for whistle-blowers to reveal what state shamefully denies
My following article appears in today’s Guardian: Revelations of British government intrusion of legitimate media reporting of… American-led, global surveillance… is a call to arms for journalists everywhere. Australian attorney general Mark Dreyfus recently claimed that Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden… weren’t whistle-blowers… because they were “politically motivated”, and neither man exposed government wrong-doing (in fact, both did in…
Washington using drones to target journalists with sensitive information?
Is this the future of investigative reporting? How far would a US government (or London?) go to stop information they believed was sensitive? Great piece by Amy Davidson in the New Yorker: On Saturday night, Michael Grunwald, aTime… correspondent, deleted a tweet that he said was “dumb”; a spokesperson for the magazine noted in an e-mailed…
Post Wikileaks snub, hard having faith in Amazon with Washington Post
The role of an accountable press has never been more important. The role of Wikileaks, whistle-blowers, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden should inspire us all and bring a realisation that transparency in a democracy requires brave souls. Here’s a great piece by Jay Rosen at his PressThink site: In exchanges with Washington Post reporter Barton…
Why Bradley Manning trial should inspire journalists and citizens to rebel
My following article appears in New Matilda today: Whistleblowers like Bradley Manning show us the true face of global power. The guilty verdict against him should stir journalists to challenge authoritarianism, writes Antony Loewenstein The verdict was never really in doubt. Former US intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was always going to be found guilty by…
Glenn Greenwald on Bradley Manning verdict reflecting Washington delusions
Great comments by The Guardian journalist on CNN:
Julian Assange: “We live in a media-ocracy”
Strong speech by the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, on his party’s media platform and need to challenge insider journalist’s culture, at today’s Splendour in the Grass music festival: Julian Assange speaks at Splendour In The Grass from WikiLeaksParty on Vimeo.
Australia’s behaviour towards Papua New Guinea akin to vulture capitalism
My following article appears today in the Guardian: The Australian government’s decision to… send all refugee boat arrivals… to Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a… political earthquake. It has nothing to do with alleviating the suffering of asylum seekers – if Canberra cared about it, a regional solution would allow processing of claims in Indonesia – and will…
Memo to media damning Latin America over Snowden and Assange
Never let facts get in the way of a good story. Here’s an important corrective, by a range of Latin American scholars, to a gullible and pro-US media that prefers playing the man than the issues: The supposed “irony” of whistle-blower Edward Snowden seeking asylum in countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela has become a…
Transparency required in journalism yet sorely lacking today
My following article appears in the Guardian today: Are mainstream journalists dedicated to journalism? This may seem like a strange question, especially since I’m a journalist myself, though independent and not tied to a corporate news organisation. We are bombarded with details that claim to inform us about the world. From war and peace to…