AN OPEN LETTER TO THE WALKLEY’S BOARD
Dear Clare
On behalf of the Walkely’s Board you have registered a complaint with the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) regarding an incorrect statement I made in my open letter to Peter Greste:
"In response to James Ricketson's open letter
(https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/07/04/rick-j04.html) the WalkleyFoundation would like to clarify that the 2011 Walkley Award for
Outstanding Contribution to Journalism was awarded to Wikileaks, not to
Julian Assange individually, though the judges acknowledged Assange’s
role as editor in their remarks.It would be appreciated if this could be corrected. Many thanks, Clare Fletcher."
(https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/07/04/rick-j04.html) the WalkleyFoundation would like to clarify that the 2011 Walkley Award for
Outstanding Contribution to Journalism was awarded to Wikileaks, not to
Julian Assange individually, though the judges acknowledged Assange’s
role as editor in their remarks.It would be appreciated if this could be corrected. Many thanks, Clare Fletcher."
I stand corrected. However, Wikileaks is clearly Julian Assange’s ‘baby’. To distinguish between Assange as editor and Wikileaks’ “Outstanding Contribution to Journalism” strikes me as hair-splitting, especially so as he faces the very real possibility of dying in a US prison as a result of Wikileaks’ “outstanding contribution to journalism,” to quote a Statement released by the Walkley’s Board on 16thApril 2019:
“In 2011, Wikileaks, with Julian Assange as its editor, received a Walkley Award in Australia for its outstanding contribution to journalism. Walkley judges said Wikileaks applied new technology to “penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup”. One of those many inconvenient truths was the exposure by video of US helicopter attacks in Baghdad that killed 11 civilians including two Reuters journalists…”
The Walkley Board clearly acknowledges that Assange/Wikileaks has played a significant and important journalistic role this past decade and more and is to be congratulated for doing so. However, such praise on the part of the Walkley Board is qualified by:
“Julian Assange’s personality and his more recent actions do not weaken the principle driving the Walkley Foundation’s concerns in this matter: that when he released the original Wikileaks material in 2010 Assange was assisting a whistleblower to reveal information in the public interest.”
I am curious to know why the Walkley Board feel the need to mention “Julian Assange’s personality” in this press release? In what way is his personality relevant to his role as Editor, Publisher or Journalist of Wikileaks? And what ‘recent actions’ of Assange’s are you referring to?
A smear campaign, replete with innuendo, scuttlebutt and character assassination focusing on his ‘personality’, has been waged against Assange within significant sections of the media over past 9 years. Perhaps inadvertently, this paragraph in the Walkley Statement adds weight to the argument that Assange is somehow deserving of his ill treatment at the hands of the UK, US and Australian governments and not worthy of community support as an Australian citizen and award-winning journalist, editor and publisher.
I am happy to amend my original statement regarding the Walkley Award. I would appreciate it if the Walkley Board likewise amended its 16thApril press release in such a way as to acknowledge that “Julian Assange’s personality” is irrelevant and to exclude references to ‘recent actions’ without specifying what these are and in what way they are relevant.
best wishes
James Ricketson
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