You do not have to spend a long time in a room with Julian Assange to
realize that he will be difficult. It takes a little longer, though, to
realize just how difficult dealing with him can be. This was the lesson
I learned in 2010, working first with Assange, and then for him at
WikiLeaks, as we published tranche after tranche of bombshell material,
leaked by Chelsea Manning.
That was the year Assange—and the whistleblowing website he runs—came to the world’s attention. First it published the dynamite “Collateral Murder” video, showing an attack on a group of people, including two Reuters journalists, by American military helicopters in Iraq.
Though few knew it at the time, this was the first in a series of ever-larger and more dramatic leaks of classified documents, shedding unprecedented light on how the United States conducted its wars, its diplomacy, and its detentions: the Afghan and Iraq war logs, the American diplomatic cables, and the Guantanamo Bay files. These were published in partnership with some of the world’s biggest news outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Le Monde. These organizations quickly learned Assange was not the kind of person they were used to dealing with.
On a personal level, the editors and reporters did not warm to him. He would turn up in their newsrooms wearing a stab vest and no shirt, tell lewd jokes, and make high-handed demands.
They complained—sometimes in public. Yet these irritants were the least of their problems: News outlets quickly ran into serious ideological issues with Assange, primarily over handling of material and how it would be redacted.
Read more: You Don’t Have to Like Julian Assange to Defend Him
That was the year Assange—and the whistleblowing website he runs—came to the world’s attention. First it published the dynamite “Collateral Murder” video, showing an attack on a group of people, including two Reuters journalists, by American military helicopters in Iraq.
Though few knew it at the time, this was the first in a series of ever-larger and more dramatic leaks of classified documents, shedding unprecedented light on how the United States conducted its wars, its diplomacy, and its detentions: the Afghan and Iraq war logs, the American diplomatic cables, and the Guantanamo Bay files. These were published in partnership with some of the world’s biggest news outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Le Monde. These organizations quickly learned Assange was not the kind of person they were used to dealing with.
On a personal level, the editors and reporters did not warm to him. He would turn up in their newsrooms wearing a stab vest and no shirt, tell lewd jokes, and make high-handed demands.
They complained—sometimes in public. Yet these irritants were the least of their problems: News outlets quickly ran into serious ideological issues with Assange, primarily over handling of material and how it would be redacted.
Read more: You Don’t Have to Like Julian Assange to Defend Him
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