Protecting "media freedom" while burying Assange

I notice that CBC is reporting on the "Faux Free Press Conference" in London while dutifully avoiding any mention of Julian Assange. Paul Waldie managed the same disappearing trick while writing about the conference in the Globe and Mail yesterday.

Jeremy Hunt has made no secret of his contempt for Assange. The kind of "free press" being celebrated in London is the kind that sticks to authorized government-approved talking points. Rogue journalists who reveal government lying and criminality are not "real" journalists at all and must face the full force of the law.

It's interesting to see that the Russian news sites Sputnik and RT have  been banned from the conference for spreading disinformation about the Skripal affair. That's unintended confirmation that those outlets probably came a lot closer to the "truth" of that debacle than anything you might find in the Telegraph or the Guardian.

That ban is also sweet revenge of sorts for Chrystia Freeland, who was quick to blame "Russian disinformation" when the true story of her family's collaboration with the Nazis emerged (the actual real Nazis marauding all over Europe 75 years ago - not the wannabes supposedly lurking all over the internet today).

It's hard to fault RT for their response to the ban;

"It takes a particular brand of hypocrisy to advocate for freedom of press while banning inconvenient voices and slandering alternative media."

Assange

Looks like the jig is up for Julian Assange. He's on his way to a US court for revealing US war crimes.

Revealing US war crimes is treason. Assange is guilty of releasing the video of US helicopters machine-gunning unarmed Iraqi civilians, included two Reuters employees, provided to Wikileaks by Chelsea Manning.

We haven't heard from our Foreign Minister yet, but her British partner in the upcoming Press Freedom Summit, Jeremy Hunt, has been all over UK media harrumphing his delight at this turn of events.

There are multiple levels of irony in play here. Governments that hide their war crimes, including the wanton murder of journalists, by silencing and prosecuting whistle-blowers, are by definition unfit to be lecturing anyone about "press freedom."