Here is Jonathan Cook's bio: <https://www.jonathan-cook.net/about/>
I don't see any relation to the Unz report nor do I understand why you're even mentioning it. The page you link to doesn't mention Johnathan Cook at all.
Please provide a citation that backs up your allegation.
It's the same article, published on the UNZ review. The UNZ review also helpfully gives you a page of all articles a given author has published on their page. http://www.unz.com/author/jonathan-cook/
It seems conclusive that Jonathan Cook is a regular writer for the UNZ review.
UNZ is fringe. It definitely posts some anti-semitic stuff, some truther stuff, some straight up foreign propaganda... That said, I've always seen it as a sort of free speech public service, a place where you can go and dip into some wrong stuff. It's an intellectually interesting place even if you disagree with most of the articles there.
You can also read Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul there. There is something to be said for writers allowing a place like that to exist. By allowing their work to be published there, they are making a statement against censorship. UNZ feels more philosophical and principled than some sort of hate speech depot. This isn't Stormfront.
Here is a quote from the mission statement:
"This is not to say that I personally agree with all or even most of what these writers believe or claim. However, sometimes the most valuable insights are obtained by reading opinions sharply divergent from one’s own. Facing a sharp intellectual or ideological challenge forces us to more effectively frame our arguments and buttress the weaknesses in our logic and evidence that had previously remained unnoticed. Taking the measure of an effective critic is always more valuable than listening to a mindless echo. And I would always prefer reading something disturbing than something dull."
The author gets to choose where their writing get syndicated to. It’s a conscious decision, for whatever reason they make it: money, principle, or just good friends with the owner. So I don’t think it’s disingenuous to point it that they have chosen to write regularly for UNZ.
I haven’t judged UNZ either way, I’m just providing a citation for the claim that Jonathan Cook writes fro UNZ. Make of that information what you want.
Is it? I don't know how writing syndication works, but I had the understanding that you worked with a syndication company, and they just make the content available for anyone willing to pay the syndication fees for access to the content.
Julian Assange's case has been a witch hunt, from the "outside" it is so easy to see, how the US institutions move the strings to get a person. It almost happened with Gary Mckinnon, it happened with some hackers in Australia, it was about to (and still might) happen to Edward Snowden.
Like it or not, US influence in the world right now looks very similar to how the Roman empire was, and as it is expected, it will do everything possible to keep it that way.
It is the perfect tool for governments.
Let's not forget that Wikileaks violated certain journalistic standards for divulging confidential information. It's a "two wrongs do not make a right" situation.
Yes, the rape charges are an awfully convenient distraction. But they exist, and should be investigated.
Which standards are those? I thought journalists were supposed to divulge confidential information if crimes we're being committed.
The ones that say if you get a pile of cables containing war crimes and private medical records of no public concern [1], you publish the former and not the latter.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/23/wikileaks-post...
I have read his articles for many years now. Most of them (mainly on Palestine) are interesting and (so far as I can tell) accurate. I would say that he is a respectable journalist, and probably a darn sight better than most of those in the mainstream media today. Doesn't mean I always agree with him, or his (usually rather left-wing) political views.
There was a time when journalists like Cook could make a living writing for a mainstream newspaper, but these days there is no place for his reporting on e.g. Israel in such places as the Guardian.
While it's quite possible that among all news sources, Jonathan Cook seems to have worked for the one horrific news source in the world, and is doing us a service by constantly exposing their acts, Occam's razor would suggest otherwise.
I've read a sampling of his articles, and he seems to be either an extremist, or someone who wishes to profit by appearing to be one. His posts seem mostly to be lacking a bit in rational discourse (with gems like "As far I can tell, none of the facts in the Guardian’s story is untrue. But that does not stop it from being a blatant lie"), and without much diversity in subject.
That is rather unfair. He's not likely to write about his experiences at e.g. the Mail, because (so far as I know) he never worked there.
This is the new attack vector of the left: if you associate with, speak to, write about or interview anyone who has ever said anything "bad", you are "bad", forever, and that's it. The definition of ad homimen.
Newsflash for you: the old media models are dead. People publish things in all kinds of fora. This doesn't make you a stereotype or representation of the average bias of said publication. Do you actually rely on a site like MediaBiasFactCheck to determine the value of the content you read, rather than your own judgement?
Et-tu brute?
In any case, an actual response to the idea of an ad hominem attack:
Reputation matters, so does context, and words do not stand alone. When taking in speech, it is important to understand the motives of the speaker, to be aware of their level of credibility. This isn't anything new or special, I learned it in high school history. People are biased, and you need to be aware of those biases when evaluating their speech.
Some examples: 1) If someone tells you, "Come in, I'd like to have you for dinner", there's a difference if that person is your father-in-law or Jeffrey Dahmer. 2) If someone tells you that some person X should be freed from charges, there's a difference if it's coming from that person's lawyer, or from the victim of the alleged crimes. 3) If you're about to cross a bridge, and one person says it's not safe to cross, and a second says it is, it makes a difference which one of the two is a structural engineer.
In the case of this particular article, I began to read it and came across several statements that were attempting to gloss over or ignore reported facts. At this point, I wanted to know if it was the result of sloppy reporting (maybe this was some personal rant), or perhaps part of a structured agenda, which is when I started to research the author. I found out that the author is a regular columnist for a company run by a known funder of racist hate groups that itself funds racist and hate speech, with poor journalistic practices.
I personally believe that we have a choice in how we earn a living (google death star contractors), but even if you don't, I think it's only fair to the reader to be aware of the writer's biases.
How does your perspective of left vs right work on this?
There were two women who both filed similar complaints with the police, and neither of them has changed their allegations.
You can read the facts of the charges yourself, and the established timelines. Whatever you feel about the charges, the timeline of events is well-established and credible. Whether or not he is guilty of rape is for the courts to decide.
I'm saying asking for sources as a way to express "I don't believe you" is a bad thing.
First of all for the reason I've just given.
But second, because it's passive-aggressive, disguised as interest in discussion, yet so transparent.
Either way, asking for a source is better than just saying 'I don't believe you'.
I don't claim my assertion is hard to find, it's been all over every newspaper all over the world.
Whereas the originally offered assertion is one that's predicated on a big cover-up (that's the whole point of the submitted blog post). So the interested reader cannot actually find it himself, he needs the gracious support by the asserter.