I disagree: I think there is a reasonable case to hold WikiLeaks and the NYT to different standards. I think WikiLeaks holds itself out as a much more anarchic news organisation than traditional outlets like the NYT. WikiLeaks isn't connected or have allegiance to any particular country, and will publish, let the facts speak for themselves and damn the establishment and any particular national interests that are harmed. On the other hand, organisations like the NYT are pretty open about how while they often publish against the wishes of USG they do ask for comment and may defer publication if they are satisfied there are very good reasons to do so. [1]

Therefore, for WikiLeaks to become highly partisan is a radical departure from their original mission; moreover, it has happened without WikiLeaks acknowledging that this is the case. I think you can't same the same for the NYT.

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/public-editor/sullivan-les...

Wikileaks did that in the past and got hell for it, for the very reason that they were then a anarchic organisation that didn't curate and pick what they published. It is what got us the Afghan War documents and cable gate. In both cases Wikileaks was accused of putting "people lives at risk", through not that any case of death-caused-by-leak has ever been claimed by any US official. Only "at risk".

Going back further in time, there was actually a stated goal of Wikileaks. It wanted to make sure that leaking is so ubiquitous, common and supported that states can't afford to have deep secrets. Looking at the recent support of government leaking after the US election Wikileaks did gain large step towards that on both side of the political spectrum, be that intentional or not.

I agree.

Why is anyone holding a site meant for whistleblowing and leaking of confidential information and the website of a newspaper to the same standard?

Apples and oranges, IMO: It's not really fair to get mad at an orange for not giving you apple juice.

>Therefore, for WikiLeaks to become highly partisan is a radical departure from their original mission; moreover, it has happened without WikiLeaks acknowledging that this is the case. I think you can't same the same for the NYT.

Well said. I don't get the partisanship from Wikileaks. What do they gain by picking sides? What is encouraging (or discouraging) Wikileaks to play cherry picker?

Well, there is that whole thing about their founder being illegally indefinitely detained and denied due process. There are no MRI machines in that embassy.

> being illegally indefinitely detained and denied due process

This is a mischaracterisation. If Assange wanted due process, he could leave the embassy and face the British (and then possibly Swedish) court systems. The only person choosing to arbitrarily detain Assange without due process is himself.

No. The entire Swedish thing is just trumped-up bullshit so that the US can extradite him on a currently sealed indictment, where he will then be tortured in prison as Manning was and is.

That's not due process.

The problem with holding Wikileaks as "selective" is that you would have to establish that there are true leaks which they have withheld from us. There's this popular misconception that Wikileaks actually hacks to obtain the data, but this is false and no one has ever so much as attempted to prove otherwise.

So given that they can't select the sources, the claims of them being "selective" just sound ignorant to anyone who knows how they operate, especially when those same claims are so often repeated in publications which are openly selective.

First of all, if you know how Wikileaks operates, you know that as well as the leaks they generate content and opinions. They are not merely a funnel.

Second, if they were trying to be just a funnel but realised that they were only getting information from limited sources with a known agenda, then they would also know that they are facilitating a political agenda. They could be open about this. But they are not. They are keeping critical details of their own activities secret (ie they choose to be selective), which is directly contrary to their stated philosophy.

In a more empirical sense, an organisation can only be judged by its output, not by its slogans or cheerleaders. In that sense Wikileaks is clearly an organisation promoting a political agenda.

> First of all, if you know how Wikileaks operates, you know that as well as the leaks they generate content and opinions. They are not merely a funnel.

Yes, but that opinion is that powerful, unaccountable organizations shouldn't be able to keep deep secrets from the general public when they do things like manufacturing consent for war.

Just because they seem to be doesn't mean that that is their intent.

Being open about sources defeats the whole purpose.

How would we tell the difference between a selective Wikileaks and a publish-everything Wikileaks?

If true leaks came out by other means with proof they were rejected by Wikileaks after being offered with validation.

The point of highlighting whataboutism isn't that the "what about" claims are wrong, its that hypocracy is irrelivant to an arugement about something.

Every one of those news outlets publishes multiple stories criticizing the current leader of the United States and the United States' foreign policy agenda. This happens nearly every hour of the day.

Yes, but they don't question or criticize our foreign policy which is very destructive to the long term interests of this country.

Pretty much every organization is criticizing our foreign policy at the moment.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=trump+foreign+policy&t=fpas&iax=1&...

Really?

Show me the set of NYT/WaPo/ETc pieces consistently outlining an editorial position for any one of the following issues:

Unaccountable global free trade deals are a bad idea, Assad is not an evil guy that should be replaced via direct or indirect US action, That Syrian rebel groups are in fact heavily islamised, that Putin is not trying to be Stalin 2.0, that the Ukraine is a mess due to problems on all sides, that a Palestinian 1 state solution is preferred to the current 2 state strategy, or equating the level of theocratic social repression in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Does the occasional piece crop up hinting that these could concievably be valid positions if they weren't actually incorrect? Yes. Does that mean they are consistently viewed or even evaluated by pinning down biases and weighing them against objective comparitive philosophical standards, particularly applied to the topic at hand? Ha!

Despite the cherry picking of subjects in your post, in 15 minutes...

Saudis @ NYT from a selection of recent articles:

"Trump has made it clear he is not worried about supporting human rights or freedom; [...] that all those difficult questions about gender equality and the like are going to be off the table for the next four years, and that Iran is very much on the table,” Mr. Riedel said." https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/world/middleeast/moham...

"The sale of oil provides billions of dollars in annual allowances, public sector sinecures and perks for royals, the wealthiest of whom own French chateaus and Saudi palaces, stash money in Swiss bank accounts, wear couture dresses under their abayas and frolic on some of the world’s biggest yachts out of sight of commoners." https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/world/middleeast/saudi... and https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/27/world/middleeast/saudi...

"Activists in the country have long protested its patriarchal society that essentially prohibits women from traveling, marrying or attending college without permission from a male relative, who is called their guardian." https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/world/middleeast/saudi...

"Western human rights organizations criticized both the trial and the sentences, saying that the accused were denied proper legal representation, charged over activities that should not be crimes and pressed into signing “confessions” that were used against them." https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/world/middleeast/saudi...

What is your criteria or definition of foreign-policy criticism which would satisfy your requirements?

What content would change your mind?

The slightly more sophisticated and worrisome complaint is that the media chases after whatever Wikileaks releases, so Wikileaks can drop a nothing-burger with a juicy headline and then the US media prints the headline, even though it is only vaguely supported by the drop.

By complaining about WaPo, et al, you are guilty of "whataboutism" yourself.

Is the standard so low that we can't even mention that a non profit(?) organization devoted to releasing leaks of wrongdoing shouldn't be blatantly partisan?

Edit: I misread the last part of your comment about "whataboutism". Yet my question still applies, isn't it?

The claims of partisanship rely on claims that Wikileaks somehow selects their sources. They are not a hacking organization and they do not go choosing targets to hack for the leaks, so they cannot be selective in the same way that, for example, the NYT chooses openly to be.

I have yet to see anyone even claim that Wikileaks participates in the hacks themselves, let alone to provide evidence thereof.

The claims of partisanship rely on Wikileaks own claims to have information that they aren't releasing.

Assange has said they have information on Trump that they weren't releasing.

> Assange has said they have information on Trump that they weren't releasing.

Could you point me to a source for that?

I was expecting something more damning. But I guess they could have published the info, and the reason they didn't is not very convincing. It suggests they are more after the publicity than after a reputation of publishing anything and everything.

From the description, it sounds like they got that opposition research doc that every other media organization had and which most of them said they didn't publish because they weren't able to validate it.

What from the description do you think described that document?

> "it’s a variety of documents from different types of institutions that are associated with the election campaign, some quite unexpected angles, some quite interesting, some even entertaining"

The fact that it was 'associated with the election campaign' and 'entertaining' made me feel it was there. I don't remember seeing other docs that satisfied both criteria, but it is only a guess and I could be wrong.

Thanks for that I actually missed his description of them and only saw where he said they were less interesting than what Trump was saying himself.

And why not? What separates them from the many non-profit(?) organizations which are partisan?

"Don't do X, it's bad for The Party" is frankly far more cancerous for the process than any truths getting revealed. The weaknesses are there either way, but highlighting them and tearing away at them would (should) lead the way for stronger parties (in the sense of fewer weaknesses to exploit; better control over the leadership by the constituents, and so on) to evolve.

But no - it's not enough that the public be sold on the idea of "only two flavors" when it 'matters', but we have to let the weak, flaw-riddled leaders of those parties limp on even if they're completely alienated from its base, because we can't risk 'not towing the party line.'

Apathy for that exact kind of 'suck it up' logic is (in my opinion, anyways) one of the hugely deciding factors in the numbers that abstained from the election this time. Frankly, organizations like WIkileaks should be doing more to tear away at existing parties and partisanship - for disillusioned voters, that'd actually be restoring faith in the system.