A Sekrit Evil?
Don’t get me wrong, there are news outlets out there who love nothing more than to print personal attacks (i.e. Newsmax) but if you have a negative opinion of Snowden, Greenwald, Assange and the Ecuadorian government, it doesn’t mean you are solely being manipulated by a shady firm. However, Max Blumenthal is convinced this is the case. It’s almost as if there is no libertarian fanboyism that contributes to the public image of these individuals.
Since journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed the existence of the National Security Agency’s PRISM domestic surveillance program, he and his source, the whistleblower Edward Snowden, have come in for a series of ugly attacks. On June 26, the day that the New York Daily News published a straightforward smear piece on Greenwald, the website Buzzfeed rolled out a remarkably similar article, a lengthy profile that focused on Greenwald’s personal life and supposed eccentricities.
Both outlets attempted to make hay out of Greenwald’s involvement over a decade ago on the business end of a porn distribution company, an arcane detail that had little, if any, bearing on the domestic spying scandal he sparked. The coordinated nature of the smears prompted Reuters media columnist Jack Shafer to ask if an opposition research firm was behind them. “I wonder who commissioned the file,” he mused on Twitter.
Buzzfeed’s Ecuador expose supported a theme increasingly advanced by Snowden’s critics — that the hero of civil libertarians and government transparency activists was, in fact, a self-interested hypocrite content to seek sanctuary from undemocratic regimes.
You may read the article here but feel free to put your skeptic hat on as I did.