An Eye on the Media: Exploring the Julian Assange Arrest

A major subject in the news recently is the WikiLeaks website, and its controversial founder Julian Assange. WikiLeaks has caused some problems for world governments by posting secret internal documents on the internet, and making secrets public that many say are detrimental to these countries. Recently Assange was arrested in conjunction with a case that seemingly has nothing at all to do with WikiLeaks; he has been charged with sexual assault and molestation. Obviously, it’s impossible for me to know if he is guilty or innocent at this point. What I do know is that there is a ton of speculation going on right now. Some say that Assange is a rapist and should go to jail, while others say that the charges are merely a smear campaign waged by “The Man” to whom Assange is trying to “stick it”. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but I think it’s interesting how different news sources have covered this important story. I recently read two articles that came at the story from very different points of view, and I found this dichotomy interesting.

The first article was on the CNN website, in the “world” section. I assumed that this would mean that the article would have a global focus and point of view, but I quickly realized that it was written with a distinct anti-Assange slant. Many American sources (though CNN is an international news organization, it is run out of Atlanta and is, for all intents and purposes, American) have been quick to condemn WikiLeaks, while very few have succeeded in staying neutral Searching the CNN website, I found a variety of viewpoints on how horrible WikiLeaks is, but failed to find any sources to contrast these one-sided articles. I’m personally not sure how I feel about WikiLeaks. I can see the good and the bad, but I’m wary of having my views shaped, even somewhat, by a potential bias in the media. In the article about Assange’s arrest, it seems as if the writer has already decided that Assange is guilty. The article contains no opinions, but the facts are presented in such a way that the criminality of Assange is emphasized, whereas any doubt over the legitimacy of the charges (the real story here, in my opinion) is kind of swept under the rug.

I didn’t notice the bias (which I think/hope is subconscious) so much at first, but then I read an article on the Al Jazeera site that was, in my opinion, more impartial and just better-written in general. The article had more quotes from a more varied array of sources. Whereas the CNN article seemed to be holding Assange’s attempted takedown of the U.S. government against him as it wrote the article about his arrest, Al Jazeera seemed more fair. It’s not as if Al Jazeera doesn’t have a reason to hate Julian Assange (indeed, it seems everyone has a reason to hate Assange): it was accused in one of the leaks for being a pawn of, and mouthpiece for, the Qatari government. Despite being somewhat embroiled in the controversy itself, Al Jazeera did a great job of reporting it, in my opinion, and it was interesting to see how different articles could tilt indisputable facts to get a point across.