The fact the US gov is so shit scared of him and desperate to murder him as soon as they get their hands on him tells you everything you need to know about the situation.
They are liars and cowards, and don't like the public being made aware of this.
A brilliant and blisteringly clear exposure of the corrupt symbiosis between the mainstream media, their corporate owners, and (their security) state. No wonder Julian Assange and Wikileaks are their mortal enemy.
"They have a market" and they are owned and controlled by so-called "Investors". Isn't it obvious that the problem is capitalism itself?
Now you don't have to be an Alternative-ist nor do you need to suggest a better way to run the world, to understand the situation. Just read this book, reviewed here with an excerpt available:
A pithy and accurate analysis of today's corporate media business model.
Unfortunately, many "credentialed" journalists can't admit that too often on matters of public interest they must toe the owner's line, which needn't be articulated in a newsroom. Skeptical? Imagine The Washington Post investigating Bezos. Good luck with that.
There's also the hubris, especially of prominent outlets and its reporters who bask in the status. The late Morley Safer, who disparaged Assange as "just a data dumper," was hardly alone in fancying himself in a priesthood ordained to sanctify what is newsworthy to the hoi polloi. Wikileaks defrocked them.
This is one of the most comprehensive and thoughtful analyses of the rise and impact of corporate media power that I have read. Thank you. I 'm saving this for rereading.
We got Congress members. X and current presidents (and VPs) with top s4cret documents in their garages. basements, and bath rooms for lite reading yet Assange for communicating the truth of our government"s underbelly is behind bars and has been for about a decade. Who are the criminals who is the truth seeker.
Our government is not ours it the MICs/CIAs/oligarcal corporate elites
As always just the best in pure journalism! I will frame this one and make a poster of it for my front door! I truly could not have done what Julian has done at such a cost. This is not old news this is an ongoing crime against humanity!
"collusion": secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others. Mr Cook choses his words carefully I assume from reading his writings. Here he lapses into the world of conspiracy theorists, and the kingdom of blog is where most choose to broadcast their often crackpot ideas. Mr Cook is not a crackpot but this article with it's intemperate language and his almost slanderous allegations against journalists is edging him in that direction. I suspect he, in his own way, like those journalists he is so dismissive of, writes for a specific audience (see adoring comments to this article) and even takes money from those who wish to read him. Unquestionably there exist journalists who are shills for some unworthy capitalist cause or other; but there are also many who do their best to report on matters as best they can, trying to expose greed, corruption and dishonesty in the powers that be, often facing obstacles put in their way by them. As a reader of and listener to the media for more than 50 years here in Canada, that has been my experience. And as Mr Cook surely knows, the interest of the public in the torment, as Mr Cook would have it of Mr Assange, simply can't be sustained for a long period. Other more interesting and important events have occurred in the world since his arrest that captures our attention far more than the travails of one journalist. Finally, I'm not sure why Mr Cook has focused on the "liberal" press as being particularly guilty of submission to capitalist owners. The liberal paper in his own neighborhood, Palestine/Israel, Ha'aretz, reports mercilessly on the Israeli governments torment of the Palestinians, which hardly seems to support his thesis in this article. Perhaps he can explain.
If you are not capable of seeing the core issue here as an ongoing problem then I think you may have failed to understand what the world is losing from this tragedy. While nuclear Armageddon is truly a current issue perhaps we wouldn't be here if Julian had been free to continue to expose these criminals. Additionally billionaires are not concerned with providing you truth but instead what's in your wallet. Any descent is quickly isolated and the control is world wide!
It's not a 'conspiracy theory'. It's an institutional analysis of power. The talk was a brief overview given time constraints, but if you seriously want to learn more about this way of analysing the media, Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman wrote a whole book on the subject called Manufacturing Consent. If that seems too daunting, I wrote a potted version in this essay: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/docs/media-rules-production.pdf
I heard Chomsy decades ago talking about Manufacturing Consent. I'm familiar with the institutional analysis. It's YOUR use of a word like "collusion" that gives the whiff of conspiracy. Furthermore, its a Chomsky/Herman theory, not scientific proof. All of us who read or listen to the conventional media with a decent education, an inquiring mind and a certain degree of sceptism can decide if the analysis holds up in all circumstances. And for me it doesn't. But I will read your "potted" essay as I enjoy your writing style and your ideas and analysis are usually worth seriously considering. However, you didn't bother stating why you have a particular beef against the "liberal" media. Is Ha'aretz in your opinion a newspaper that suffers from the disease you expound on in your article?
Ah, because of Corporate power, governments have to subsidise wages of workers due to the low pay they dish out. That money could be better spent on our children’s education if the Corporates paid a fair wage.
You seem very upset by Mr Cooks piece so, I am guessing you think every person should see through the lack of truth in corporate journalism?
As a fellow Canadian, I would be interested in your views on what current media sources you find trustworthy. Personally, I have a hard time finding much diversity with integrity here. 
I don't find the media sources always trustworthy and from personal experience I know they can get their facts wrong. But I don't buy into Mr Cook's thesis that it's always an institutional, societal or generic problem dictated by money. But in terms of generally purveying information and criticism they often seem to get things right. A prime example of the media not kowtowing to power and accurately reporting was the coverage and outpouring of criticism of how all institutions dealing with the trucker's convoy in Ottawa (where I live) a year ago failed miserably. And listening to some of the CBC programs on radio and on TV hardly gives the impression of an organization in the lap of the government or anyone else; rather it often seems to be biting the hand that feeds it, thank goodness. And our national newspapers often are highly critical of government and corporations in their operations. I don't find that they always seem to be catering to a specific audience and tailoring their information accordingly. I wonder what it is you don't trust about our national media. Are you at the point that you don't believe anything you read or hear from them?
It is awful watching what they have done to Assange since when he first stepped into the embassy. I was a teenager then, and I'm now an adult; I have literally grown up watching my favourite journalist be tortured and destroyed by the state. The denial inspires a special amazement and disgust from me, because I am incapable of remembering a time when states did not visibly collaborate to perform slow motion executions of dissidents.
He is not only a revolutionary journalist, but a brilliant man, and I sorely miss the days when he was still able to be a public intellectual. He was even on Twitter at one point until he was inexplicably banned one day, sometime after his Internet was cut in the embassy if I recall correctly. He was not only informative, but he had a very sharp wit and was very funny; details about him long forgotten, especially with the long enduring propaganda campaign against him.
I still hold out hope he will somehow go free, however unlikely that outcome may be.
Noam Chomsky's takedown of Andrew Marr is again duly noted. As is the fact that MSM journalists are less colorfully dressed versions of Renaissance courtiers, or more educated fluffers. In either case, their relationship with power is functionally similar.
The fact the US gov is so shit scared of him and desperate to murder him as soon as they get their hands on him tells you everything you need to know about the situation.
They are liars and cowards, and don't like the public being made aware of this.
With attention on the defamation suit against Fox now, perhaps Assange will be released for honest reporting. I hope so.
Fine article.
A brilliant and blisteringly clear exposure of the corrupt symbiosis between the mainstream media, their corporate owners, and (their security) state. No wonder Julian Assange and Wikileaks are their mortal enemy.
Thank you, Jonathan. This stuff is gold.
"What drives a paper like the Guardian or New York Times is not their inner moral values. It is simply that they have a market."
We might just as accurately say that,
What drives a corporation such as x,y,z is not their inner moral values. It is simply that they have a market.
x,y,z = BigPharma, BigChemical, BigPesticide, BigOil.. BigAnythingYouCan Name.
"They have a market" and they are owned and controlled by so-called "Investors". Isn't it obvious that the problem is capitalism itself?
Now you don't have to be an Alternative-ist nor do you need to suggest a better way to run the world, to understand the situation. Just read this book, reviewed here with an excerpt available:
https://peterwebster.substack.com/p/bigyou-name-it-all-guilty
Let he who is without farts, pass the first fart.
Superb!
A pithy and accurate analysis of today's corporate media business model.
Unfortunately, many "credentialed" journalists can't admit that too often on matters of public interest they must toe the owner's line, which needn't be articulated in a newsroom. Skeptical? Imagine The Washington Post investigating Bezos. Good luck with that.
There's also the hubris, especially of prominent outlets and its reporters who bask in the status. The late Morley Safer, who disparaged Assange as "just a data dumper," was hardly alone in fancying himself in a priesthood ordained to sanctify what is newsworthy to the hoi polloi. Wikileaks defrocked them.
This is one of the most comprehensive and thoughtful analyses of the rise and impact of corporate media power that I have read. Thank you. I 'm saving this for rereading.
We got Congress members. X and current presidents (and VPs) with top s4cret documents in their garages. basements, and bath rooms for lite reading yet Assange for communicating the truth of our government"s underbelly is behind bars and has been for about a decade. Who are the criminals who is the truth seeker.
Our government is not ours it the MICs/CIAs/oligarcal corporate elites
so clear and concise. every sentient being should know these self-evident truths.
As always just the best in pure journalism! I will frame this one and make a poster of it for my front door! I truly could not have done what Julian has done at such a cost. This is not old news this is an ongoing crime against humanity!
What's awful about the Assage drama is that we are complicite to it
"collusion": secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others. Mr Cook choses his words carefully I assume from reading his writings. Here he lapses into the world of conspiracy theorists, and the kingdom of blog is where most choose to broadcast their often crackpot ideas. Mr Cook is not a crackpot but this article with it's intemperate language and his almost slanderous allegations against journalists is edging him in that direction. I suspect he, in his own way, like those journalists he is so dismissive of, writes for a specific audience (see adoring comments to this article) and even takes money from those who wish to read him. Unquestionably there exist journalists who are shills for some unworthy capitalist cause or other; but there are also many who do their best to report on matters as best they can, trying to expose greed, corruption and dishonesty in the powers that be, often facing obstacles put in their way by them. As a reader of and listener to the media for more than 50 years here in Canada, that has been my experience. And as Mr Cook surely knows, the interest of the public in the torment, as Mr Cook would have it of Mr Assange, simply can't be sustained for a long period. Other more interesting and important events have occurred in the world since his arrest that captures our attention far more than the travails of one journalist. Finally, I'm not sure why Mr Cook has focused on the "liberal" press as being particularly guilty of submission to capitalist owners. The liberal paper in his own neighborhood, Palestine/Israel, Ha'aretz, reports mercilessly on the Israeli governments torment of the Palestinians, which hardly seems to support his thesis in this article. Perhaps he can explain.
If you are not capable of seeing the core issue here as an ongoing problem then I think you may have failed to understand what the world is losing from this tragedy. While nuclear Armageddon is truly a current issue perhaps we wouldn't be here if Julian had been free to continue to expose these criminals. Additionally billionaires are not concerned with providing you truth but instead what's in your wallet. Any descent is quickly isolated and the control is world wide!
It's not a 'conspiracy theory'. It's an institutional analysis of power. The talk was a brief overview given time constraints, but if you seriously want to learn more about this way of analysing the media, Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman wrote a whole book on the subject called Manufacturing Consent. If that seems too daunting, I wrote a potted version in this essay: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/docs/media-rules-production.pdf
I heard Chomsy decades ago talking about Manufacturing Consent. I'm familiar with the institutional analysis. It's YOUR use of a word like "collusion" that gives the whiff of conspiracy. Furthermore, its a Chomsky/Herman theory, not scientific proof. All of us who read or listen to the conventional media with a decent education, an inquiring mind and a certain degree of sceptism can decide if the analysis holds up in all circumstances. And for me it doesn't. But I will read your "potted" essay as I enjoy your writing style and your ideas and analysis are usually worth seriously considering. However, you didn't bother stating why you have a particular beef against the "liberal" media. Is Ha'aretz in your opinion a newspaper that suffers from the disease you expound on in your article?
Ah, because of Corporate power, governments have to subsidise wages of workers due to the low pay they dish out. That money could be better spent on our children’s education if the Corporates paid a fair wage.
You seem very upset by Mr Cooks piece so, I am guessing you think every person should see through the lack of truth in corporate journalism?
As a fellow Canadian, I would be interested in your views on what current media sources you find trustworthy. Personally, I have a hard time finding much diversity with integrity here. 
I don't find the media sources always trustworthy and from personal experience I know they can get their facts wrong. But I don't buy into Mr Cook's thesis that it's always an institutional, societal or generic problem dictated by money. But in terms of generally purveying information and criticism they often seem to get things right. A prime example of the media not kowtowing to power and accurately reporting was the coverage and outpouring of criticism of how all institutions dealing with the trucker's convoy in Ottawa (where I live) a year ago failed miserably. And listening to some of the CBC programs on radio and on TV hardly gives the impression of an organization in the lap of the government or anyone else; rather it often seems to be biting the hand that feeds it, thank goodness. And our national newspapers often are highly critical of government and corporations in their operations. I don't find that they always seem to be catering to a specific audience and tailoring their information accordingly. I wonder what it is you don't trust about our national media. Are you at the point that you don't believe anything you read or hear from them?
Oh please.
It is awful watching what they have done to Assange since when he first stepped into the embassy. I was a teenager then, and I'm now an adult; I have literally grown up watching my favourite journalist be tortured and destroyed by the state. The denial inspires a special amazement and disgust from me, because I am incapable of remembering a time when states did not visibly collaborate to perform slow motion executions of dissidents.
He is not only a revolutionary journalist, but a brilliant man, and I sorely miss the days when he was still able to be a public intellectual. He was even on Twitter at one point until he was inexplicably banned one day, sometime after his Internet was cut in the embassy if I recall correctly. He was not only informative, but he had a very sharp wit and was very funny; details about him long forgotten, especially with the long enduring propaganda campaign against him.
I still hold out hope he will somehow go free, however unlikely that outcome may be.
Thank you great speech wanted to write it down myself or record it very impressive love your work
Noam Chomsky's takedown of Andrew Marr is again duly noted. As is the fact that MSM journalists are less colorfully dressed versions of Renaissance courtiers, or more educated fluffers. In either case, their relationship with power is functionally similar.