An Unprecedented Attack on Press Freedom

Re:An Unprecedented Attack on Press Freedom by ben_w on Saturday October 03, 2020 @11:15AM (#24672554)

> So why are the media ignoring it?

A better question is: why is the media telling you that the media is ignoring it?

In addition to this link, Google news is showing me[0] these headlines:

• “My ringside view in the case of Julian Assange” - Evening Standard, 1 day ago

• “George Christensen calls on Australia to lodge formal protest over treatment of Julian Assange” - The Guardian, 1 day ago

• “Julian Assange will spend Christmas in prison as judge will decide on January 4 whether to extradite WikiLeaks found to the US on espionage charges” - Daily Mail, 1 day ago

• “Assange ‘forced’ those behind war crimes ‘to look in the mirror,’ now faces revenge, John Pilger tells RT” - RT, today

• “Julian Assange 'acutely troubled' that unredacted documents made public, court hears” - Press Gazette, 3 days ago

• “Shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq 'would have remained a secret but for Julian Assange'” - Evening Standard, 3 days ago

• “US intelligence sources discussed poisoning Julian Assange, court told” - The Guardian, 2 days ago

And that’s just the first page of results; subsequent pages show it being covered by The Intercept, The Sydney Morning Herald, Reuters, BBC, Bloomberg, CNN, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, Sky News, Deutsche Welle, and a lot more I’ve never heard of.

[0] caveat: I’m in Berlin and explicitly chose UK results, because The Independent is a UK newspaper; choosing USA results gives me a differently list of recent results from a different set of publishers, but the point is the same

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Unprecedented Attack on Press Freedom by purple-again on Saturday October 03, 2020 @01:56PM (#24673606)

This isn’t enough information to decide if the media is ignoring the story. Back in the age of print newspapers a common trick was front page above the fold story on Monday morning that was not true followed up by a one paragraph retraction on page 14 in Saturday’s paper.

The modern day digital equivalent is harder to determine and I am not aware of any service attempting to do so. The news companies have solid analytics on how their websites are used. For each of those articles linked were they on the front page? Did the user have to scroll down to a section where stories are only clicked on by 2% of users? Did the story remain linked on the front page of the website for 1 hour or for 2 days? Is the contents of the link the same as the contents was when it was first published?

It’s entirely possible that the reach of all of those articles you linked above could be measured in the 10’s of people rather than the millions.

Most people don’t search for news on a topic. They visit Fox/CNN or whatever their preferred source is and consume what is presented to them.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Unprecedented Attack on Press Freedom by SpicyLemonZest on Saturday October 03, 2020 @02:12PM (#24673701)

I worry that this is an "ignoring of the gaps", if you will. There's always going to be something an outlet could have done to further emphasize a story, no matter how much they focus on it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Unprecedented Attack on Press Freedom by 1MachineElf on Saturday October 03, 2020 @12:22PM (#24673006)

Perhaps it is because many people expect their public officials to echo the stories in the media, and the silence of those leaders is percieved as a media silence.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Unprecedented Attack on Press Freedom by loopz on Saturday October 03, 2020 @12:46PM (#24673165)

Not at all. Pro-profit media is simply reporting, as is profitable, that there's no mention or arguments from the media anymore about the issues regarding war crimes, without explaining why.

[ Parent | on HN ]