Why journalists are the jealous boyfriend in a tumultuous relationship

William Hoffman
wh092010@ohio.edu

Us journalists are a great choice as a mate. We're dependable, hard working and even funny every now and then. Sure we're a little cautious, but it's only because we care. We play by the rules and it pays off with a solid stream of content that we can rely on.

But oh no, here comes pretty boy Julian Assange. He's a bad boy that likes to bend the rules and get results the easy way. He gets results this way and just scored that sexy story you've been trying to get, and he didn't even consult us first. That seems kind of rude. Now you're left picking up the pieces of his broken relationship and have to tell everyone what happened.

Okay, so the situation is a little more complicated than a typical high school relationship, but you get my point. It seems like journalists have taken up arms against information leakers such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. Yes, some of the acts of these people have been irresponsible and misguided just like that of the high school bad boy. But the fact is they have broken some of the most important stories of the past few years and it seems to me that journalists are jealous.

Assange does not consider himself a journalist, as stated in this Ted Talk, which he agreed to sit down for, he calls himself an activist — albeit in a typical snarky and pompous way. I can see why Bill Keller, then editor of The New York Times, said that Assange got under his skin. He may be a bit of an ass, but he's definitely smart.

The first big leak of the air strike on Baghdad, which resulted in the death of 11 people — including two Reuters employees and two small children — is horrifying. The operators are laughing about the attack and seem to just kill without a conscience. It's a clip that might not have been published in its entirety if in the hands of The New York Times, and it's one of the most atrocious attacks the public has seen from this 10-year war. He also mentions that the government was spending our tax money to cover this kind of stuff up.

His leak led us to some very important questions about the U.S. military involvement overseas that would have never been revealed else wise.

Like today's reading suggests, if a traditional reporter had got wind of this they would have been buying the shelves to prepare storing their incoming pulitzer prizes. But instead a lot of the story was covered up by coverage of how journalists were upset with Assange and how he beat them all to the punch.

Yes, there is some concern of national security, but this is minimal compared to the subject matter of what had just been revealed. After a short week it seemed like every headline had to do with the moral question of releasing documents rather than the fact that the military was going around killing civilians and creating a new generation of terrorists. It's as if they were personally trying to smear Assange. I think the media at times got so stuck up in their jealousy and traditional ways of thinking that they failed to cover the more important story out of all of this.

But of course that didn't stop papers and new organizations from weighing in and discussing the many facets of this ethical dilemma. The Washington Post had an editorial after Manning was convicted, condemning Wikileaks as not being a journalistic entity. That may very well be the case, but third party organizations like Wikileaks can still provide a very valuable service to the public.