Julian Assange Compares Himself To Rupert Murdoch In Editorial For The Australian

by Hillary Busis | 10:34 am, December 7th, 2010

» 21 comments

Apparently, before Julian Assange was arrested in London, he penned a defensive editorial for The Australian. In the piece, Assange asserts that Wikileaks has “coined a new type of journalism,” that his organization has “changed whole governments” without hurting a single person, and that as a truth-teller, Assange himself has a close resemblance to another pair of famous, Australian media moguls: Rupert Murdoch and his father, Keith.

Here’s the beginning of Assange’s editorial:

In 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide’s The News, wrote: “In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win.”

His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch’s expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.

Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.

I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.

These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia , was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.

Cynics will probably sneer at the parallel Assange draws, or at least part of it; regardless of what Keith Murdoch did as a journalist, his son is much better-known for tarting up the press than for being a fearless defender of the truth. Assange’s comparison is doubly questionable since he goes on to call himself and WikiLeaks “the underdogs”—Murdoch the Younger is many things, but an underdog ain’t one of them.

Read the rest of Assange’s note—in which he predictably decries the persecution he’s faced—at The Australian.

Australia, editorials, Julian Assange, The Australian, Wikileaks

Atticus Draco

Read the rest of Assange’s note

lol,, NO THANK YOU
skyfet

I don’t like Murdoch.
Atticus Draco

skyfet said:
I don’t like Murdoch.

i dont think you really needed to announce that,, lol
but since you did,,
why dont you tell us how great you think Assange is,,
i wanna get a quick glimpse of how warped your brain really is
skyfet

Murdoch is not like his Father. Unlike his Father, bloody Murdoch supported W and Tony Blair to invade a sovereign country and shed blood, which is still being done. Murdoch put pornography on page 3 of his newspaper, hire morons who cries on TV, hire phonies and Republican shrills, I can go on and on and on. Why the hell would he want to compare himself to Rupert, he should limit it to Murdoch’s father, that’s it.
Hugo Daun

Great clip of Fry and Laurie with this piece, Hillary.

Thanks!
Atticus Draco

skyfet said:
Murdoch is not like his Father. Unlike his Father, bloody Murdoch supported W and Tony Blair to invade a sovereign country and shed blood, which is still being done. Murdoch put pornography on page 3 of his newspaper, hire morons who cries on TV, hire phonies and Republican shrills, I can go on and on and on. Why the hell would he want to compare himself to Rupert, he should limit it to Murdoch’s father, that’s it.

Well,, as F’d up as Assange is,,
Assange is NOT as F’d up as you,,
that’s the reason
skyfet

@Atticus Draco
Am disappointed in you, I thought you were going to turn it towards Murdoch, instead you turned on me. Well you are one of his marketing tool.
Atticus Draco

skyfet said:
@Atticus Draco
Am disappointed in you, I thought you were going to turn it towards Murdoch, instead you turned on me. Well you are one of his marketing tool.

It NEVER ceases to amaze me how many many faulty conclusions you can come up with..

The point of Assange’s note is deflection!
And you fell right for it NIMROD!
skyfet

@Atticus Draco
I care less about him, well except for the ignoramus showing their true colours by declaring they want him hung etc etc. It’s also an opportunity for me to blast Murdoch who I don’t particularly like his work, well some of it.
Atticus Draco

skyfet said:
@Atticus Draco
I care less about him, well except for the ignoramus showing their true colours by declaring they want him hung etc etc. It’s also an opportunity for me to blast Murdoch who I don’t particularly like his work, well some of it.

AGAIN,, that is something that goes without saying
I HAVE ONLY BEEN HERE A MONTH AND YOU’VE SPOUTED THAT ENUFF TIMES!!!
You’re NORROW MINDED,, WE GOT IT!
skyfet

@Atticus Draco
I don’t think being a pornographer on a national newspaper, or hiring ignoramus is open minded. That says more than you than the fact.
Atticus Draco

skyfet said:
@Atticus Draco
I don’t think being a pornographer on a national newspaper, or hiring ignoramus is open minded. That says more than you than the fact.

HOW EXACTLY?!?!?
lol,,, ‘coz i’ve NEVER rendered an opinion on Murdoch!!

WHAT YOU’RE DOING IS CALLED PROJECTION!!!
Thelonious Funk

The only bias that documents have is truth.
skyfet

@Atticus Draco
It’s you that brought closed minded to the conversation.
Just4thefax

Fact: skyfet you need to make statements out of the facts! Not from talk liberal as a dummies book!
skyfet

@Just4thefax
That doesn’t make any sense to me. Go back to sleep or wash your face and drink caffeine.
Powerslave

skyfet said:
@Just4thefaxThat doesn’t make any sense to me. Go back to sleep or wash your face and drink caffeine.

Huh?

Are you the guy who posts the links to the shopping sites and asks us to “temporarily stop our footprints”?
skyfet

@Powerslave
Another one that needs to get up and smell the coffee.
Harry Flashman

Assange compares himself to Murdock. Hmmmm.

I really have no doubt that he also compares hinmself to a combination of Paul Revere, Woodward and Bernstein, and William Wallace with a touch of Casanova thrown in for good measure.

Reality: he’s a computer geek with a massive narcissistic personality who lucked into a web site idea that blew up into what it is now because of a very disturbed army private who had access to secrets. Without that wikileaks would still be an annoying (at best) government gossip web site.

I sure Assange disagrees.
Just4thefax

Fact: I feel like starting to advertise my nerf liberal you’re so fucking nuts bat. This is a bat you can club your screen with when you read the liberal lunatics post on this site without damaging your PC or laptop. Details later on how to get your own liberal flogging nerf bat. Aka “the shellacker”.
Magister

Hugo Daun said:
Great clip of Fry and Laurie with this piece, Hillary.

Thanks!

…and thanks to you for describing the clip.

Though it’s better for database management, the fact that there’s no identifier in the YouTube links and most bloggers don’t manually add a title and Google doesn’t do it in their link code, I had just skipped over the video the first time through and only watched it after reading your description.