The grandparent very clearly defined what they mean by that. Assange hasn't had to make any retractions.

Can you name another news source that has made no retractions in the past 13 years?

Sure, PR Newswire has never retracted an article in the past 13 years, to my knowledge. They've published corrections given to them by sources, but the original article was accurate to what the source gave to them. They are truly modern-day heroes.

That is impressive. I was unaware. Thanks for sharing.

I mean, the reason is that PR Newswire just reprints things they're given from others. They're not investigatory journalists in the usual sense by any means.

Since when does no retractions mean a faultless record? That just means you stand with all of the bullshit you spew, not that you're a fully truthful source.

Like when Wikileaks was perpetuating the nonsense Seth Rich conspiracy as cover.

I believe what they’re trying to say is that the context clues in the top-level comment tell us that the comment author defines “faultless record” as “no retractions”. You, me, or any other person can have a different definition of “faultless”, but that is just making conversation break down when we’re all replying to one particular definition that seemed (to me at least) clearly spelled out.

Not really - we don’t have to accept a false framing.

If they mean no retractions, they can just say no retractions.

‘Faultless record’ is a deliberate overgeneralization to make it sound like WikiLeaks is more reputable than it actually is.

Consider that Donald Trump has an equally ‘faultless record’ based on this criterion , and yet many people consider this to be sociopathic behavior,

‘No retractions’ is not a measure of journalistic quality or integrity, and certainly not an indicator of faultlessness. Indeed willingness to retract is usually considered a good thing.

We're saying the same thing! A supporter of Trump or any other politician might think "their guy" is faultless, and I would probably disagree, but I wouldn't sit there arguing with them about how and why they _should_ find fault. The original comment framed their personal definition of 'faultless' by following it immediately with their definition (no retractions). You or I don't have to agree with that, and it just derails the entire conversation to sit here and argue (myself included) about the definition of a throwaway word. Nobody in this conversation is trying to convince you that their definition of faultless matches yours or that Wikileaks fit that criteria, whatever it may be.

I know a lot of completely Republican trump supporters. None of them think trump is faultless.

And yes, the poster is trying to have people accept heir framing of of faultless which is why they are meeting resistance.

This is not an equation. It is a conversation.