Why is Julian Assange a media star?
I do not intend to argue here whether Julian Assange is a hero or a criminal. I do not intent to discuss whether he is a journalist. Those are topics for another day. But I do want to talk about Assange’s role in the leaking of government documents and the media coverage of Assange.
Julian Assange is not a leaker of government secrets — he is a publisher of government secrets. There’s a big difference.
All of the leaked documents Assange and his website Wikileaks.org have published may have come from one man, a 23-year-old U.S. enlisted man named Bradley Manning. That’s what the U.S. military believes: It is holding Manning in "isolation," although his defense team says Manning has not even had a pre-trial hearing.
Manning, then, appears to be leaker. Assange is only a channel, a publisher (like the New York Times and other media outlets) of information someone leaked to him. And Wikileaks.org, as far as I can see from visiting its website, has published only the documents the U.S. military is alleging Manning leaked — nothing else.
Manning is no Daniel Ellsberg. Had Manning had leaked the documents directly to the New York Times, the Guardian and other media outlets, we would never have heard of Julian Assange.
So why is Assange an international media star?
- Assange cultivates publicity — the banner on the Wikileaks.org website features a thoughtful-looking and artfully edited photo of him. In the past two years he has crisscrossed the globe making public appearances, including, in the U.S., on MSNBC and The Colbert Report. Manning is in jail and has never spoken publicly about the leaks.
- Simply put, Assange is available to the media and Manning is not. Never underestimate how much that matters in making someone a media star.
- Assange is a charismatic man, and he is articulate about what he sees as the purpose of Wikileaks. We have little idea, other than some third-person quotes, who Manning is and what motivated him to do what he did.
I’ll say it again: Assange is not a leaker, he and his Wikileaks website are a conduit. Julian Assange should no more be a media infatuation than Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times, who has overseen the publication of dozens of excellent articles about the leaked documents.
Follow Mark Leccese on Twitter at @mleccese.
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About the author
Mark Leccese, a journalism professor at Emerson College, covered Massachusetts politics, business and the arts for more than 25 years as a newspaper reporter, editor and magazine writer. He has More »Recent blog posts
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