Julian Assange

As NewsBusters previously reported, schlockumentary filmmaker Michael Moore got himself in trouble this week when he defended WikiLeaker Julian Assange from Swedish rape charges. Moore doubled down with this defense Friday publishing "Dear Government of Sweden" at the Huffington Post: 

Keith Olbermann suspended his Twitter account Thursday as a result of a torrent of criticism over comments he made about the rape charges filed against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The trouble started Tuesday when schockumentary filmmaker and Assange supporter Michael Moore was Olbermann's guest on "Countdown":

While NBC on Tuesday focused on the "funny" and "intelligent" side of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Nightline's Brian Ross conducted a tough, hard-hitting investigation into the questionable finances of the man attacked by colleagues as a "dictator." Ross used the December 14 ABC program to raise questions about "what's happened to the group's money" and to highlight former colleagues who…

Poor Julian Assange. He has celebrities lining up donations to get him out of a British jail, and now, the Atlantic reports, he'll be staying at a massive Kent Suffolk manor owned by, you guessed it, a prominent British journalist (well, his parents, really).

NBC's Peter Alexander, on Tuesday's Today show, decided to explore the softer side of WikiLeaks founder and purveyor of U.S. state secrets Julian Assange as he interviewed an investigative journalist from Oxford University who found him to be "funny, intelligent" and "not at all...rigid" and also aired a clip of Assange's mother speaking up for her son as she demanded that the world "stand up…

To the sound of the nation's collective yawn, filmmaker Michael Moore announced Tuesday that he had given $20,000 to bail out Wikileaks proprietor Julian Assange from a British jail. Moore cited his admiration for Assange's quest for openness and transparency in government. But Assange has openly declared that his objective is precisely the opposite - he wants to make the American government…

Appearing on Monday's Today show to reveal the finalists for his magazine's Person of the Year issue, Time's managing editor Richard Stengel hyped that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is "changing the way we look at" diplomacy, the "perception of secrecy" and hailed he had "an enormous year." Stengel didn't bother to attach a value judgment to Assange and the negative effect he's had on…

NBC's Andrea Mitchell this weekend named the Tea Party as her Person of the Year. Two others on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" disgustingly chose WikiLeaks' Julian Assange (video follows with transcript and commentary):

 On Saturday’s Fox News Watch, during a discussion of whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, panel member and conservative columnist Andrea Tantaros cited the Media Research Center - parent organization to NewsBusters - as she paraphrased the most recent Bozell Column and its reaction to Time magazine editor Richard Stengel’s defense of Assange.…

Imagine the year is 1942 and the German government runs a news bureau in Washington, D.C. collecting government secrets. Even FDR would have laughed at claims they were actual journalists, locked them up and thrown away the key. He would have been right. There's a huge difference between an individual or an organization reporting abuses in government or business one at a time and the same…

MSNBC.com reported Thursday that Julian Assange was hiding out in the Frontline Club, a club for journalists in London, where reporters "closed ranks and kept his whereabouts to themselves." That Assange "knew…he would be well-fed and, more importantly, safe" at the Frontline club demonstrates the bizarre affinity that journalists have for the Wikileaks founder. Assange's mission is not…

On NPR's weekend show On The Media (produced by radio station WNYC), New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller reacted badly to NPR's Bob Garfield suggesting Julian Assange of WikiLeaks was a "looter" or a smasher of windows. Keller insisted the document dump has "more value" than that metaphor, that the dump is "absolutely fascinating...like a graduate seminar" on international relations. …

On December 7, the notorious radical mastermind of “WikiLeaks,” turned himself in on a sexual assault charge in London. But in the liberal media, the condemnations are few. There are no real enemies to the media elite’s left, especially if they can be (very loosely) identified with journalism. Julian Assange may be highly motivated to cripple American “imperialism,” but his relentless efforts…

A hacker who styles him "th3 j35t3r" -- The Jester in plain English -- has made quite a name for himself disabling jihadist websites and, more recently, the U.S. national security-threatening site WikiLeaks. While his methods are technically illegal, The Jester's motivations are patriotic, aimed at saving American lives on the battlefield. Yet in telling his story, MSNBC's Red Tape…