If you have a friend who broke their ankle and is in hospital overnight, you send a basket with soap and socks (or more likely, flowers). If you are the head of a news organisation and have a fellow journalist (who you've worked with in the past and gave you "the biggest scoop in 30 years") and is currently facing political persecution by the most powerful government on earth, you send lawyers to help him get out of the situation and cover it endlessly until something is done about it. As Jacob Appelbaum said in the video I linked, it's an example of not treating such a serious situation seriously.

So yes -- it was a snub in the sense that it was literally the least useful form of "help" they could've given. Julian didn't need symbolic help. He needed actual help, and the Guardian left him out to dry (and then proceeded to publish countless articles smearing him -- including flat-out lying as in the "he met with Manafort" case).

Heck, WikiLeaks sent one of their lawyers to help Snowden in Hong Kong when he got in trouble (and bought him plane tickets and the rest of it -- even trying to rent a private jet to get him out of Russia while he was stuck in the airport) -- and they didn't even have anything to do with publishing the Snowden revelations.

It's funny you mention Appelbaum - he is another person who upset some powerful entities and had a smear campaign against him.

I have never myself heard that narrative about Appelbaum. It seems clear that, while some of the allegations against him were unfounded, others were made by women who publicly identified themselves and their experiences of being sexually harassed or sexually assaulted by Jacob Appelbaum.[0]

Is there really a narrative that these women fabricated stories of sexual abuse by Jacob Appelbaum because he upset some powerful entities?

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum#Allegations_of...

See https://www.zeit.de/2016/34/jacob-appelbaum-sexueller-missbr... from the Wikipedia article) and briefly alluded to in the FAQ at http://jacobappelbaum.net/ (- If you're a sexual predator, what better cover story is there than "the FBI is making shit up about me.") and https://archive.is/UX9Jk

This was brought up in discussions at the time as being a potential smear campaign against him. I personally didn't really buy this as being the most plausible explanation -- though I will say that the US government has definitely done things like this before (the FBI tried to manipulate MLK into committing suicide by threatening him with "evidence" of sexual misconduct[1]). And if I was a spook, it's probably the first course of action I would take to discredit someone.

Personally though, I think the more obvious issue in the Appelbaum case is that he was held to "trial by social media", which is a very common pattern these days. In the end, there was no legal action taken by ether Appelbaum or the women accusing him (and the veracity of some -- though not all -- of the stories was challenged by other women in the Tor community). He's now back to doing crypto-related research as a student of Bernstein and Lange (recently publishing a paper about improving WireGuard's security).

So I don't think we'll ever know if the allegations were true or not, but it probably means he won't work as a journalist (or for the Tor Project) again.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...

All these activities seem wildly beyond the scope of what I’d consider journalism. Why don’t they just write about it rather than getting mixed up in it like this?

Journalism organisations have lawyers for a reason (and they do help other journalists and even sources with legal troubles), so I completely disagree it was out of their power to do something about it.

But also -- they didn't even write about it. They smeared him relentlessly for 7 years only to "change their tune" immediately after the point-of-no-return.

All these activities are exactly what investigative journalism is supposed to be.

Assange is riding the edge of what is considered permissible in society, where this line effectively divides the state and consolidated power, and the public.

These are matters of life and death for Assange, victims of the war crimes of which he's published, and future potential victims if journalistic freedom is further restricted and thus even less accountability for war criminals.

The Guardian has elected not to bring their clout and lawyers to bear on these matters. Instead, they sent Assange a basket of soap and socks for his extended stay in a foreign embassy.

> The Guardian has elected not to bring their clout and lawyers to bear on these matters.

Isn't it correct that the journalists stay out of the news themselves? They should be reporting, not becoming the story by 'bringing their clout' to anything.

I disagree entirely.

If it were possible to be apolitical, I would agree. I don't think it's possible for any one person or entity to be apolitical, thus I think they should simply be as honest as humanly possible.

Claiming any sort of neutrality merely serves to mask agendas.

It reminded me of various movies where a solid soap inside a sock is used as a weapon. Still I don't think this is what it's about in this case.

Related: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanket_party

If I had to guess it's something (socks) you might give to a homeless person.

No, the problem is that it is literally the least useful form of "help" they could've given someone who is facing political persecution from the most powerful government on Earth. It's basically a really underhanded way of saying "you're on your own on this one".

We're not going to help you get out, so please accept these token socks and soap because you're on your own and you will need them in there.