The author of that article, Emma Grey Ellis, builds her criticism toward Wikileaks on three main points: a) that in its more recent revelations Wikileaks appears to want to play power games b) that Wikilaks has no scruples in collaborating with the devil himself since -as she claims without any evidence whatsoever- there are signs that the e-mails from the Democratic National Committee were obtained from Vlamidir Putin’s agents and c) the revelations could harm people since they are not subjected to any form of journalistic editing before publication. Let us see those arguments one by one.
 

On agendum


To make the argument that Wikileaks wants to play power games, Ellis says of Assange that “he hoped the DNC leak damaged the Clinton campaign”. She bases her false claim on a New York Times article that says Assange “hoped to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency”, whom “he saw as a personal foe”. The same article, however, was a false story along with the claim that Assange “hoped” to harm Hillary Clinton as anybody can see from the video bellow.

It is particularly touching to witness, in the year 2016, that well established media moralize on objectivity. The very term is, nowadays, obsolete. In theory, objectivity is an important journalistic trait and it encompasses fairness, disinterestedness, the presentation of the truth and taking an equal distance from all sides of the covered subject. All these in a Kantian world. In real life objective journalism doesn’t exist. The choice of subject, the ability of the journalist, the sources, the research on site, the choice of a title, even the accompanying visuals (photos, video) and –mainly- the publishing medium, the chief editor’s interventions; all those aspects are full of subjective choices, personal beliefs and fair or unfair censorship.

 
“Objectivity” must give its position to something new. It is moronic that journalists should keep the position of Higher Moral Judge. Facts might lie; truth can lie behind objects, and it often does. A story is never complete enough to reveal all its aspects and journalists will always be subject to the biases of their personal opinions, their ideologies and their education.
 
What is needed from the media is financial independence and a clear, openly declared ideological identity. A framework, an environment where they will be able to broadcast information under the least possible restrains and limitations.
 
Western type media must break the commonly accepted rule, “reporter or analyst” and allow their journalists to publicly express their views so that their readers may be as informed as possible and able to judge the quality of the work. Paul Mason is a telling example of a good contemporary journalist, with a clear ideological background, who finally decided to leave Channel 4 in order to continue producing investigative as well as ideological work.
 
Let's go back to the WIRED piece, which claims that Wikileaks has lost its high moral ground since Assange has claimed that he wishes for the revelations to harm Hillary Clinton’s campaign. But, if we put aside the fact that this claim was fabricated, we have to ask one more question: Which are those revelations that the writer of the article fails to mention? The emails revealed by Wikileaks describe a web of dealings between politicians and large “objective” media, such as Wall Street Journal and MSNBC. Set-up reports, pre-organized questions in order to put the opposite side in a difficult spot -in this case, Bernie Sanders,- as well as interventions to journalists before publication. Want to talk about moral high-ground again?
 
One of the biggest problems which faces journalism today is its inefficiency. In the past -when people still believed in journalistic objectivity- a Watergate was enough to make the leader of the Western world resign. In today’s cynical society, the revelation that within the Democrat party, the heads of the National Committee tried to financially and morally destroy one of their own candidates only spikes a small part of the Twitter community. The head of the committee, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who resigned right after the revelations, appeared at the Democratic convention and gave her speech as honorary head of Clinton’s (who happens to be the very candidate whom she was revealed to be favouring against Sanders) campaign. The writer of the article on WIRED failed to see the problems with any of this–problems that should clearly be within the realm of her moral sensitivities. After all, what is the difference between the facts that Assange has a very strong position against Hillary’s campaign and that Schulz tried to harm that of Bernie? (Beside the fact that the later actually achieved her goal).
 
Journalism should produce results. If revelations don’t move society, if they produce no impact, then the only result is the defeatism of the weak towards the audacity of the powerful. And this is a problem which must be dealt with by journalism – old and new.
 
So, does Wikileaks have an agenda? Indeed it does. Just as WIRED has one when it publishes that particular analysis and supports a specific ideology -that of neo-conservativism through technology. The difference is that Julian Assange is not hiding his own agenda behind naïve ideological formations about “objective” journalism.
 

On Political Machinations

 
The second argument in the article concerns the possibility that the leak has come from Russian Secret Services. Before we even start talking about facts let us remember that the best answer to this accusation has already been given by a Swiss philhellene journalist, Ioannis-Iakovos Mayer. The quote is displayed at the central hall of the Union of Greek Journalists: “Publication is the soul of justice”.
 
Journalism has always worked like that; the vast majority of investigating reports begin via evidence offered by those who wish to see them published. In fact, most of the time the intentions of such sources are not the best. Speaking of a moral high-ground we should also ask ourselves: “Who serves public interest?” A simple way to reach an answer on that question in this case is to ask a few other questions: What would have been even more immoral? What should Wikileaks have done after it got the information? Wait for the end of the US elections? What would be morally worst? Publication or non publication?
 
Emma Grey Ellis takes some liberties with rationality; she claims that since Assange admitted that he wanted to harm Hilary Clinton, we may deduce that he collaborated with one of America’s enemies in order to acheve his goals. Yet this is a witch hunt with no grounding since, as she admits herself, none of these accusations can be proven–in complete juxtaposition to what has indeed been proven through the leak, namely that the Democratic Party has in fact been biased against one of its very own candidates.
 
The writer takes this a step further: If you are a legit whistleblower, she says, why would you go to Wikileaks? Why not contact the NYT or Intercept as in the case of the Panama Papers? The answer is simple, in Cablegate, the NYT censored wires while claiming that they had to protect the names of those who would be in danger from the revelations. But after the full database went online it was proven that they were protecting people who were only in danger of having their fame marred. And there seems to be a slight problem with Ellis’s chain of thought: Intercept itself uses Wikileaks for its reports, and Panama Papers, in the manner that they were published, protected rather than caused any damage to the notorious 1% of the world’s richest.
 
As for the concept of a “legit whistleblower” what is there to be said? Edward Snowden has to live in exile because he revealed that the US secret services were spying on US citizens. The US forced the presidential airplane of a sovereign country to land at a specific airport because there were suspicions that it was being used to help Snowden escape. Assange is already enclosed in the tiny Equadorian embassy in London.
 
In reality, Wikileaks is the only way if someone fears that he might be in danger due to the revelations that he is holding. It is the only medium which does not even need to know the whistleblower -it only evaluates the merit of the revelations from a journalistic viewpoint. So who really has the moral high-ground?
 
People who put their lives in danger in order to serve the public interest are possibly not willing to trust mainstream media such as WIRED since, for instance, one of the magazine’s editors realized while chatting with Chelsea Manning in a personal chat room that he had been talking to the person responsible for the Cablegate leak, and revealed the whistleblower's name to the US secret services (she is now serving 35 years in prison).
 

On the quality and method of leak publication

 
In the beginning of her article, Ellis notes that the WIkileaks revelations about Turkey have put women to danger by publishing their personal information. Actually, Wikileaks never published the names of anyone in their revelation.You can read more about this here and here. 
 
The truth is that the leak of e-mails belonging to 200.000 members of Erdogan’s party offered no significant revelation, yet this does not mean that they did not demonstrate the structure and the way in which the AKP operates. Among the various emails, one can find favours, changes in the lists of those who got scholarships for university dorms, and the general manner in which a party can be structured in order to form bonds of dependency with the citizens.
 
The above raises a new crucial question on new journalism; should the data be edited before publication? The rational answer seems to be that they surely should. Yet Wikileaks is an organization which does not have the funds available to systemic media and it simply has no ability to overview everything. Through the interviews of the Wikileaks people it is clear that a lot of effort is being put in order to make sure that no one comes to danger through the revelations. The truth is that even in Cablegate, a case where a lot of objections were raised on account of the fact that spies or sources of the USA would come under danger, no such incident has been reported. to this day–after massive amounts of data have been published by Wikileaks.
 
Wikileaks may be subject to criticism on the AKP files or even the second part of the DNC Leaks, which were about phone recordings of citizens who were simply badmouthing Sanders. Still the moral standing of an organization that serves the principle of full publication, one that willingly acknowledges and ignores the many personal and legal costs its members will suffer as a result, cannot be questioned.  
   

In conclusion (back to the beginning).

 
When someone decides to criticize another on the basis of morality, they should conduct the discussion within a frame of morality that applies to all parties involved. Ellis pays no attention to the revelations of immorality accomplished by Wikileaks, her stance seems to be: “OK, what did you expect? That the mainstream media would not hold hands with politicians? It is you, who claim that you are a paragon of morality, that must be absolutely spotless.” This is “the saint” argument. The very same people who support the naïve Kantian morality are taking themselves outside the moral-immoral debate. While considering the corruption of the media as a natural occurrence, they ask that the other side be saintly in every aspect if their “moral high ground” is to be acknowledged at all. Wikileaks is certainly not perfect; but cannot be the determining factor in a discussion about its morality.
 
In this new technological era, journalism is in danger unless it manages to create a new model. The systemic media, which claims to serve the absolute truth and objectivity, is constantly losing ground in the eyes of the world's savvy citizens. This spreading disillusionment gives ground to an all-encompassing questioning, and a subsequent collapse, of the impact of journalism in general. Social media are taking over the ground that is left empty from the constant retreat caused by unreliability, and a new environment is formed. An environment where trolling, sensationalism, rudeness and haste are the main elements.
 
In this new dystopia, where anything that seems objective enough can be spread with unfathomable speed via anonymous internet users, a new balance between traditional and new journalism is not only welcome but necessary too. It is a matter of protecting the democratically accepted right to information.
 
It is in this field that WIkileaks, even though it is not a perfect organization, has a lot to offer, exactly because it has not lost its moral high ground. On the contrary, it keeps holding that ground under difficult conditions and while facing increasing attacks by the systemic media.
 
PS. In her criticism, Ellis attempts to demonstrate a connection between Wikileaks and anti-Semitism. I happen to know Wikileaks and its people. I know very well that racism is not an element of the organization. This attack is taking place within the well known systemic media tactics, specifically that of attributing conspiracy theories to their “enemies”.