Techrights

Julian Assange on How to Assess the Impact of Publications

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 29, 2024,

updated Sep 29, 2024

WebM: "They will attack the messenger and try and discolour the message."

Julian Assange's wife, Stella, has just re-shared this video that resonates well with us and echoes our experiences. One good way to assess the positive impact (as in, the ability to actually change something for the better) is the proportionality of the response, which may say nothing about accuracy, just "hurt". People feel hurt when people say true things about them which they would rather the public never know.

Good journalism is journalism that also has impact. And if it has impact, the messenger and platform will both get attacked. More so if it's hard or impossible to actually refute the message.

Julian Assange will give a public talk in a couple of days - the first one since 2019. █