Why Does Jeanne Whalen Have a Hardon for Julian Assange?
by Urizenus Sklar on 01/10/10 at 7:59 pm
WSJ reporter gets trolled by Cryptome.
by Urizenus Sklar, Contributing Editor and Damn Good Company
It seems like just days ago that Luddie asked me to begin looking into the curious case of Jeanne Whalen’s WSJ story, which claimed that five human rights organizations had written a letter complaining to WikiLeaks that it was not taking proper care to protect civilian informants. As we soon discovered, the article was riddled with errors. To wit: not all the signatories were with human rights organizations, most of the signatories were not speaking for their organizations, and the letter was a call to meet with Assange, not an upbraiding. That the letter (which Whalen won’t release) quickly made it into her hands made whole thing smell of Newscorp astroturfing.
Little did I realize when I began to investigate this story that I would fall into another interwebs rabbit hole ™. It seems that this was not the first time Whalen has engaged in a disinformtion campaign against Assange and Wikileaks, and thanks to John Young of Cryptome we have an inside look at the desperation of her methods (Young trolls her and the WSJ for good measure). We are left to ask, who is this woman working for?
It seems that Whalen has been on the warpath against WikiLeaks for some time. Not only has she published the error-ridden article mentioned above, but she has also co-authored an article on the financing of WikiLeaks, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 23rd.
Now it is all good to ask where WikiLeaks funding is coming from – we are investigating this at the Herald (my next post will have details) – but it is more than a bit disingenuous to say, as the WSJ does, that “WikiLeaks’s lack of financial transparency stands in contrast to the total transparency it seeks from governments and corporations.”
The assertion is a cheap shot on two counts. First, if the donors are in fact private individuals they may well fear reprisals from foreign powers. WikiLeaks is not opposed to secrets – it is opposed to state secrets and the hoarding of secrets by those in power. But beyond this it is remarkable that the WSJ article failed to note that WikiLeaks did leak its own donor list in February, and the article also failed to report that in early August (weeks before the article appeared) Assange was working with the Pirate Bay founders at Flattr to use its micropayments system to support WikiLeaks.
Is there some reason to completely overlook theses sources of funding in a story about WikiLeaks funding? Incompetence can only explain so much. At a certain point the only rational explanation for gaps and misrepresentations in reporting has to be that the reporter is shilling for someone.
Interestingly, we gain some insight into Whalen’s reporting methods leading up to this August 23 story, as John Young of Cyptome tells all, setting up the WSJ for some epic pimping by asking that the interview take place in Rupert Murdoch’s New York penthouse apartment:
Jeanne Whalen, Wall Street Journal reporter in London, has seen this file but doggedly persists in emailing and telephoning about Wikileaks. (She said she knew Cryptome always spills reporters’ pule.) Cryptome suggested today she abandon the Wikileaks story as dead in the water, now just a fund-raising scam, no longer doing what it set out to do. She said the story is still popular. Then after a slew of questions about Julian Assange, anonymous postings about Wikileaks on Cryptome and ridiculous personal questions about John Young, she suggested Cryptome meet with a WSJ reporter in New York working on the story with her. We said no, face-to-faces are timewasters: ignorant questions and misquotes. Still, we said if she could arrange a meeting in Rupert Murdoch’s 5th Avenue penthouse, we’d do a session just to see what changes had been made since John Young did work there for Laurence Rockefeller. We noted that such paid for Cryptome so it could be part of her story, and that ice-hearted interrogation in the billionaire digs would make fine detail, help practice to be managing editor. After confirming the Rockefeller listing on Natsios Young Architects, Ms. Whalen said she would forward the proposal.
When Newscorp ultimately fails to approve the meeting in Rupert’s 5th Avenue penthouse, Young tees off with great lulzy effect:
You said the WSJ editor turned down the use of Rupert Murdoch’s penthouse for an inteview because editorial and business are kept separate and Murdoch is business. That is hoarily disingenuous for no media keeps editorial and business separate, the two are inseparable with business always in control.
I’d have to agree with Mr. Young on that one. And he is welcome to be interviewed on the Herald yacht anytime!
Finally, something about me. In private channels a number of you have asked me, “Uri, how do you do it? How do you take care of your day to day business and manage your baller lifestyle while still fighting to protect our freedoms?” The answer is that of course it hasn’t been easy. I have had to fire my masseuse and convert the shipboard spa into an interwebs war room. My communications officer Helmut is weary from all the encrypted messages I’m asking him to crack, and our onboard Cray XT5 computer is in danger of overheating from humming along at 1.75 petaflops 24/7, but it’s all worth it knowing I am making the world a better place for my fans. As faithful readers know, I love everyone. Except babyfurs.
To be continued…
IntLibber Brautigan
Oct 1st, 2010
Uri, it is now hunting season up here, and you can hunt from a boat. Steam on up here and we’ll shoot a few babyfurs. Bring an old hunting license or hunter safety card and I’ve got someone in Fish & Wildlife set to issue you a new one on the dock.
Urizenus Sklar
Oct 1st, 2010
Int. I was thinking we would just club the babyfurs with aluminum baseball bats.
Alyx Stoklitsky
Oct 1st, 2010
>Why Does Jeanne Whalen Have a Hardon for Julian Assange?
BECAUSE OF JULIAN’S HAIR.
God, are you people fucking DENSE? I keep telling you the answer to all of this but do you listen? NOOOOOOOooooOOOOOO!
Julian’s. Fucking. Hair.
Velvet Bikcin
Oct 2nd, 2010
Word of advice, put down the Hunter Thompson and come up with your own style, he did it much better.
Judge Joker
Oct 2nd, 2010
@ IntLibber Brautigan + Urizenus Sklar
At least Baby furs keep their real life shit to themselves, where as you guys just keep stacking it up for us to step in.
Please wipe your asses of this real life bullshit, and get back to the core of what this site was about, we’re your audience and we have to be fed faux drama to distract ourselves from our own and media generated real life bullshit.
As for Wikileaks constantly only targeting the United States? that’s the kind of bullshit that would make him a traitor if he was a US citizen, most other country’s would hang someone for that.
I’m glad most atrocity’s & bad business practices are exposed, but eventually if not all ready hes going to cross a line and have a nasty accident, as hes just constantly pushing and pushing against the US department of defense and other shadow groups like the CIA e.t.c who don’t fuck about when they want you gone.
Lucky Julian Assange is Australian & not a US citizen or he would have disappeared long ago, but if he was running a true international organization then he would not be focusing on the US and go after China or other such places that regularly and without any true legal process commit atrocity’s daily, or has he not got he balls to play in an international park?
He’s a media whore who’s heavily reliant on the Justice and good legal process of such country’s like the US & so ultimately I would call him a BABY and not worthy to run such an organization like wiki leaks, that should be international in nature and not just when it suits him to run away from being locked up.
Hes totally bias and only invested in punishing the USA.
IntLibber Brautigan
Oct 2nd, 2010
Joker,
“Hes totally bias and only invested in punishing the USA.”
Geeze dude, exactly what I said several times. Cut it out or the JLUfags are gonna claim that you are me again.
Uri,
Clubbing them is only legal if they are in the open on the ice. Otherwise you have to use dynamite if they are in the water, or a crossbow if they are on land. And you can’t bait them. I know, its so natural, but they respond to it so easily that it is deemed to be unsporting.
James Freud
Oct 2nd, 2010
I just wee weed in my pants with my pee pee
Urizenus Sklar
Oct 2nd, 2010
Judge Joker says: “Please wipe your asses of this real life bullshit…etc”
Dear Judge,
Shhhh, don’t tell anyone but I don’t *really* have a yacht with a Cray XT5 supercomputer. And I’m not really in the Black Sea right now.
Your fictional friend,
Uri
who cares?
Oct 4th, 2010
As my name says. I thought this was a blog about virtual worlds? Why is this crap in here? Since when is this uri’s personal hugbox? And why does he have a hardon for this Jeanne? Who the hell is she anyway, and why does Uri think anyone aside from himself cares? And why is Uri so obsessed with babyfurs? Why am I asking these questions while the answer to every one of them is the same and fairly obvious?
Urizenus
Oct 4th, 2010
Mr. Cares, do I really have to connect the dots for you? I thought it was all rather obvious: Jeanne Whalen is part of the International Babyfur Conspiracy.
who cares?
Oct 5th, 2010
That leaves the question why do you care so much about babyfurs that you have to mention them left and right?
Urizenus
Oct 5th, 2010
Mr. Cares, if by “mention them left and right” you mean “mention them in precisely one article in the seven year history of The Herald” that is a very interesting question. But one might also ask why a single mention makes you so uncomfortable. Could it be that deep down you are a bit fur curious?