LOL: Judith Miller criticizes Wikileaks' Assange for not verifying his sources

Why is disgraced former New York Times reporter Judith Miller not fond of Wikileaks and Julian Assange? "Because he didn't care at all about attempting to verify the information that he was putting out or determine whether or not it would hurt anyone," she said.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Anonymous

“or determine whether or not it would hurt anyone” this is incorrect. Wikileaks have worked closely with newspaper publishers to vet information from leak documents which they feel would ‘hurt’ people. IMHO misinformation is the worst enemy of our freedom and news in the USA compared to here in Australia appears very misinformed.
bardfinn

Also, I’m … puzzled. How, exactly, is Herr Assange meant to verify the factuality of a series of leaked, classified documents, for which the government of the United States has only two verbal responses (being “No Comment” and “You have the right to remain silent, anything …”) and for which anyone involved in their creation or review can expect to be charged with treason should they comment, thus assuring their silence unless they’re fools – ?

And as the United States has quite a bit of reach and power with regards to the infrastructure of the Internet, and has cover-up teams on-call 24/7 (you’re a fool if you think they don’t – what is the CIA for, after all?) wouldn’t it be totally counterproductive and foolhardy to tip his hand in any way by attempting to verify any of the published pieces?
- mdh
  
  AND the US has only said one of those two things.
Manooshi

Wow. Fuck that ****! Judith Miller’s NYT articles drummed for war against Iraq via Cheney’s lies; and we’re supposed to believe she’s a total dumb bitch about what constitutes “verifiable sources” AND the fact that she is projecting HER war crimes onto Assange? Miller is just as much a war criminal as Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld for having exploited her position at the NYT to green-light the racist and illegal killings of 2-million Iraqis since ’03.
EH

Can’t wait to read her next story for Newsmax.
ukaser

I’m sorry but I have to kind of give her the sway in this argument.

She’s right when she says that her job was to report what the government believed. There is an argument that says you shouldn’t report on things you know are lies, but you also want to be sure to communicate what the powers that be beleive and are doing.

A journalists job is not become the news, it’s to report the news. This is something that Assanage fails to grasp. Wikileaks is the story, not the leaks themselves.

Not to mention the guy tried to stop a ‘leak’ about his own current legal situation.

Yes, this woman is an idiot, but Assanage is worse. He’s an idiot with followers.
- Cowicide
  
  Yes, this woman is an idiot, but Assanage is worse. He’s an idiot with followers.
  
  ukaser, you are incredibly ignorant on this subject. Does that make you an idiot too?
- Anonymous
  
  There is an argument that says you shouldn’t report on things you know are lies, but you also want to be sure to communicate what the powers that be believe and are doing.
  
  A journalist’s job is to report both what they believe and that they are lies. Giving one without the context of the other is the job of a stenographer, and is all but lying in a reporter.
scifijazznik

It’s like RAAAYYYEEEAAAAIIIIN on your wedding…ah, fuck it. The joke is on anyone who still reads Judith Miller.
Dave Faris

It’s like rain on your wedding day or a free ride when you’re already late.
mdh

Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!â€”One; two: why, then
’tis time to do’t.â€”Hell is murky.â€”Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and
afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
pow’r to accompt?â€”Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?
Anonymous

But there ARE WMDs in Iraq!!

There ARE!!

Scooter TOLD ME SO!!
Lobster

I thought he said there was some stuff he wasn’t releasing because it would cause harm?

Either way, I don’t think Assange’s (or rather WikiLeaks’) role is to report. It’s not providing evidence. It’s telling us where we need to look. You can say it should either do the other half of the job as well or sit down and shut up, but no one else seems to be doing the job right now.

WikiLeaks is far from perfect but it’s better than nothing. Either way, it’s best not to make a habit of it.
Anonymous

Well…She’d know, wouldn’t she? She’s an EXPERT!
Anonymous

pot, meet kettle.
seyo

lulz @ teh delishus eyerownee
Anonymous

being a modern day conservative with no need to acknowledge the past and its mistakes or the present and its realities and facts must be so liberating. i see why it appeals so much to evil miscreants and assorted fuckups.
Osprey101

Next up: Down the rabbit hole with reigning fact-checker Judith Miller!
MrJM

UPDATE: A spokesman has confirmed that Irony was rushed to a local hospital this morning due to extreme exhaustion.
Church

WTF? She’s either made shit up, or been dumb enough to swallow shit that was made up.

How does she still get work?

(Seriously. I could use a job and I can pretend to be that stupid.)
- Keith
  
  Ah, but can you pretend to be that stupid for a sustained amount of time? Even Stephen Colbert has trouble keeping the mask on, and his audience is in on the joke.
Dave Faris

Well, let’s give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume that she learned from her own mistakes.
grimc

Isn’t this hypocrisy, rather than irony?
- mdh
  
  Impressively, it is both.
- Tatsuma
  
  If you really can pretend to be THAT stupid, I hear FauxNews is hiring.
Anonymous

heh heh heh

wait, what?
Anonymous

I hear there are good jobs manufacturing consent.
kip w

After all, this is somebody who swiped her name from a Gilda Radner routine on Saturday Night Live.
Anonymous

While I have no respect for the journo making the statement, the statement itself is not without merit. Assange has repeatedly attempted to bill himself as a media reporter in order to receive the protections that more formalised media reporters have. However those same formalised media reporters have restrictions that he won’t allow himself to have.

Assange also got upset with his own police reports being leaked?! It very much seems like assange wants one rule for him and another set for everyone who opposes him. People who work like this are just in it for the thrill of the game.
- mdh
  
  meh @ your attitude. There is a difference between privacy and secrecy. And there very much is a problem with Judy Miller calling the kettle black here. Namely that she never owned her own pottedness.
ericmartinex1

The US is biggest propaganda machine on earth. Don’t believe anything that comes out of that place. Especially information from a government agency. That’s why these cables are so liberating – even though they come from the State Department – but State Department is a government agency! 1/0! (brain explodes)
Znaps

The hardest button to button is, if he/Wikileaks as an organisation *DID* censor more material, or have a stronger vetting process, the same people who criticise them now for posting things indiscriminately would criticise them (more) for acting as self-appointed censors.