back to article Oz journalism award to Assange™

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has branded Australian PM Julia Gillard a “coward” and her government “craven” in his Walkley Awards acceptance speech for 'Outstanding Contribution to Journalism.' The highly coveted accolade, judged by industry peers, was awarded to Wikileaks in "recognition of long-term commitment and …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sorry did he actually say "the goal of exposing illegality and wrong-doing"?

    Then why is he trying to avoid facing the charges against him?

    He must have known that as part of his role as figurehead of Wikileaks he had to maintain an absolutely squeeky clean public persona?

    Go and prove yourself innocent or go away Julian.

    1. Gordon 10

      Hear hear

      Lets not forget that even that bastion of honour and nobility Dominique Strauss-Kahn had the decency to step down whilst justice ran its course, therefore why does Julian?

    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Devil

      RE: AC

      Shirley, that should be; "the goal of making a fast buck and getting my fifteen minutes in the spotlight"?

    3. Winkypop Silver badge

      Hmmmm

      That's pretty much what I said.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: did he actually say "the goal of exposing illegality and wrong-doing"?

      Yeah, it was shocking when he went on the lam.

      What's that? He didn't? He's following due process? Then what are you wittering on about?

    5. Ian Michael Gumby
      Boffin

      @AC. It has nothing to do w being squeaky clean...

      Assange wouldn't be newsworthy had it not been for the lack of respect he has shown women.

      We're he a better lover and had wrapped his little friend, he would be back in Australia w his mum dodging his child support obligations.

      Seriously he could be a total playboy w a different girl on his arm every night and no one would care as long as he had respect for those women and treated them w respect.

      Poor Julian needs to grow up. (how many adult males skip down the street like a giddy school girl?)

      If you want to blame someone other than Julian, blame his mum. IMHO another piece of work who needs medical attention.

      Sorry but I have to disagree about Julian being forced to lead a squeaky clean life style. He's the one who put himself ona platform...

      1. Scorchio!!

        Re: @AC. It has nothing to do w being squeaky clean...

        "Poor Julian needs to grow up. (how many adult males skip down the street like a giddy school girl?)"

        His demeanour has always been of interest:

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/27/nyt_on_assange/

        “One night, when they were all walking down the street after dinner, Assange suddenly started skipping ahead of the group,” Keller recounts. “Schmitt and Goetz stared, speechless. Then, just as suddenly, Assange stopped, got back in step with them and returned to the conversation he had interrupted.”

        The next one has a twist to it. I have it filed in the H:\[...]\Wikileaks\Sex and personality\ directory:

        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340068/WikiLeaks-boss-Julian-Assanges-week-Sweden-grows-sleazier.html

        "Yesterday an American reporter said the day Assange arrived in Sweden, Wednesday, August 11, he went out to dinner at Stockholm’s Beirut restaurant with the WikiLeaks Swedish co-ordinator, the co-ordinator’s girlfriend, and the journalist and his English girlfriend.

        The journalist claims Assange, 39, ignored him and instead focused intently on his girlfriend, even following her out for a cigarette. He said: ‘When they hadn’t come back after 45 minutes I went to see what was happening.

        ‘They were standing very close together a little way down the street, and Julian was whispering in her ear.’

        The journalist later saw his girlfriend and Assange walking hand in hand, and claimed that when he challenged the WikiLeaks founder, ‘he dropped into a classic fighter’s pose, with his fists up’.

        He said: ‘Assange seemed to take pleasure in humiliating me.’ The writer slept alone that night.

        Assange went on to meet Miss A and Miss W, both of whom he is accused of molesting."

    6. James O'Shea
      Pirate

      why indeed

      "Then why is he trying to avoid facing the charges against him?"

      I can think of several probable reasons why he would want to stay as far away as he can from the courthouse on this matter. Most of them involve evaluations as to who is telling the truth in the matter, and how much truth is being told.

      Personally, I suspect that his Taiwanese pirate ancestor was much more honest than Julie is, but that's me.

      Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.

  2. Stephen McLeod Blythe
    FAIL

    doh

    “Does she really think she can become Obama’s deputy and run of with his job and his friends, like she has done before?"

    run of?

  3. npo4

    Murdoch?

    I wonder why it wasn't Rupert Murdoch...

  4. James O'Shea

    What is truth?

    John 18:38.

    1. Bernard M. Orwell
      Trollface

      I find it deeply ironic that you quote about truth from a book that is clearly entirely devoid of any provable truths whatsoever.

      Well done.

      When you get over the anger you are now experiencing as a result of my denigration of your holy book, try some grown up thinking:

      http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

      "Truth is subjective; for each viewer there is a seperate truth and even by combining all of those experiences we will never arrive at an imperical answer. There is no truth, other than what you decide for yourself."

      1. Scorchio!!
        Devil

        Cultural relativism has never been a part of my epistemological diet.

        Plato held the position that there are absolute truths. The difficulty with cultural relativism is that, for example, under such an analysis capital punishment is entirely acceptable among cultures that believe it is a valid form of truth, and the same of course would apply to male (which also happens) or female genital mutilation. I laugh my arse off when I hear feminists, Marxists, socialists/Labour party members spouting cultural relativism, which really is the death trap of all thinking. However, and unlike bible bashers, they do at least try to find some form of truth, just not an objective one.

  5. Ian Michael Gumby
    FAIL

    Yawn...

    Sorry but I guess it must be sweeps week down under. Why else would they claim Assange is a journalist.

    1. Scorchio!!

      Re: Yawn...

      He is no more a journalist than Glen Mulcare or any other of that information stealing mob.

      1. Ian Michael Gumby
        Boffin

        Even his former friends say no...

        Even the press who got lots of print thanks to julian later condemned his irresponsible actions.

        Responsible press vette their sources and redact pieces of information.

        Assanage does not. Nor does he care about the ramifications to his own acts...

  6. bugalugs

    Reported here in Oz

    as anomolous. " not a journalist ", " under a cloud ", " just a source " etc.Whether he wore a raincoat whilst having a couple of showers in Sweden has been and will be the subject of endless speculation and investigation but the fact is the guy exposed a whole load of the shit that goes on behind the scenes between our masters and everyone else.

    The recent granting of a huge base for US marines in our Northern Teritory was announced as a fait accompli, requiring little or no further comment.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well, I remember Prime Minister Harold Holt - you know -- the Prime Minister who disappeared without a trace while skin-diving off the Victorian coast. Sadly, it seems he had dared to disagree with the US TPTB over the Vietnam war.

    So maybe I could cut Julia a little slack, one 'disappeared' PM is surely enough...

    1. StuartMcL

      @AC - cutting Julia a little slack.

      It would be the best thing that could happen to Australia at the moment if Juliar "was disappeared"

  8. Chris Miller

    "we, journalists"

    He's being ironic, right?

    1. Scorchio!!
      Happy

      Re:"we, journalists"

      "He's being ironic, right?"

      Ya can have a right ol' shindig down at the Walkleys cobber, an' no mistake:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkley_Awards

      What we most of all like to do is have a few glasses of the amber nectar before going up on stage, and then having a physical confrontation to decide on matters epistemological:

      "Australian journalism's most prestigious night descended into chaos[4] when Glenn Milne physically and verbally attacked rival journalist Stephen Mayne live on stage at the 2006 Walkley Awards.[4]

      As presenter Mayne prepared to present an award to Morgan Mellish of The Australian Financial Review,[5] a "red-faced"[4] and "seemingly intoxicated"[6] Milne lurched onto the stage before launching a tirade of verbal abuse at Mayne; Milne then lunged at Mayne and pushed him off the stage,[5] screaming at Mayne that he was "a disgrace".[4]"

      Oh yeah, we 'journalists' sure know how to do things in style. ;-)

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Assange is always good for a belly laugh

    Ya gotta wonder how much drugs he's using everyday.

  10. mhenriday
    Big Brother

    Pity that Mr Assange is not, say, a Chinese citizen,

    in which case all those so ineptly satirising him and Wikileaks on this thread would, of course, be applauding him as a martyr for democracy. And Ms Apostolou would no doubt be referring to his supporters as freedom fighters, rather than «true believers». Matthew 7:3-5....

    Henri

    1. Scorchio!!
      Meh

      Re: Pity that Mr Assange is not, say, a Chinese citizen,

      Assange has actually put something similar to that rumour about, among many others:

      http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=5

      "The name Assange is thought to derive from Ah Sang, or Mr. Sang, a Chinese émigré who settled on Thursday Island, off the coast of Australia, in the early eighteen-hundreds, and whose descendants later moved to the continent. Assange’s maternal ancestors came to Australia in the mid-nineteenth century, from Scotland and Ireland, in search of farmland, and Assange suspects, only half in jest, that his proclivity for wandering is genetic."

      http://www.theweek.co.uk/people-news/3283/julian-assange-experiment-gave-me-white-hair?asid=957a34b3&hidecomments=1

      " Equally bizarre was his response to her questions about his unusual surname. He told Brooke: "Some people think it's French or African. My mother is French. My grandfather was a Taiwanese pirate."

      When Brooke refused to believe the pirate story, Assange seemed hurt, telling her: "He was a pirate and landed on Thursday Island where he met and married a Thursday Islander woman. They went to Queensland." "

  11. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Never heard of the Walkley Awards....?

    Oh, NOW I see why they gave it to ASSnut!

    1. Stephen 10
      FAIL

      So your ignorance is evidence of what?

      They're easily the most prestigious and well regarded journalism awards in Australia.

      It's an award by journalists as well and is probably the least contentious of these types of awards.

      So, from this it would appear that Australian journalists think he's a journalist, a group of uninformed but opinionated Register readers don't. Make your own choice who which group carries more weight with you.

      Also, because it needs repeating yet again: He has not been charged with anything!

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Happy

        RE: So your ignorance is evidence of what?

        Evidence of the non-impact of Australian journalism on the rest of the World? On the other hand, Australians do seem to follow a lot of US and British press.....

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    An award?

    An award for the man who's organisation today published the names and addresses of the remaining seven Jews in Baghdad?

    This also from a man who has ranted at the editor of Private Eye about the Jewish conspiracy against him at the Guardian.

    He argues that Wikileaks shouldn't edit or censor (ie: That they're not journalist), except when it is convenient to his agenda. ie: When it makes the Americans look bad (Collateral Murder video) edit it and use commentary to editorialise. When it's individuals of a religion he doesn't like or when informants are involved, don't edit because in Julian's mind (and he is on record as saying this) they deserve what they get or they are in a conspiracy against him.

    1. Scorchio!!
      Meh

      Rer: An award?

      "An award for the man who's organisation today published the names and addresses of the remaining seven Jews in Baghdad?"

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/02/assange-hero-zero-swedes-pitiable

      "Assange-the-hero vanished somewhere in that antisemitic and antifeminist slime. Sweden's relatively high measure of sexual equality and consciousness in gender questions is a matter of national pride. That a dodgy hacker from Australia started knocking it was not popular.

      Not even the culture pages of Aftonbladet, which kept up their uncritical admiration for Assange longer than anyone else, can keep it up now. The noted leftwing commentator Dan Josefsson admitted recently that Assange was not the radical hero he had supposed, but "a solitary and shabby libertarian who wants to tear down democratic societies". "

      http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/42856/julian-assange-im-same-position-jews

      "Julian Assange, the 39-year-old Australian behind the extraordinary leaks of US diplomatic cables and documents, told The Times that he believed the allegations and the publicity surrounding them were unfounded and motivated by “a mixture of revenge, money, and police pressure.”

      He said: “All sorts of abusive statements were made against the Jewish people in the 1950s and before.

      "I'm not the Jewish people, but the people who believe in freedom of speech and accountability [are in the same position].” "

      Except to note that the net has been ripe with observations on Assange and antisemitism for months, no further comment is necessary.

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