With a personality and context, with guests to discuss. Wikileaks was dry and left up to other journalists to write stories.

Few journalists would do that today because most now toe the main line -or they think it’ll give the “other guy” cover. No one bucks the incumbents these days. See anyone criticizing any western government actions these days? It’s not like there isn’t any fodder.

This is an idiotic statement. The governments I'm most familiar with are criticised daily.

The most recent: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jun...

'When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3.'

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

All of this is petty criticism, it makes headlines one day and it's gone the next. You're allowed to say anything as long as it doesn't threaten to effect real change, you're allowed to protest as long as you do it at a scheduled time and place without seriously inconveniencing anyone, and you're allowed to expose crimes as long as they don't pose a serious threat to the institutions or people in power. It gives us an illusion of freedom of speech for the 99.9% while the heavy hitters are taken care of through persecution, false prosecution, torture, and occasional murder.