He has to come from the Journal region of France, otherwise he's just a sparkling whistleblower. /s
From the tone of the article it seems like the author simply detests Julian Assange and Weiss puts forward no standard for who can rightly be called 'a journalist'.
Compare Seymour Hersh's codswallop on the Skripal affair with the excellent work done by Bellingcat. It's clear that in this case the mainstream media got it mostly right and Hersh made a dog's breakfast of it.
This colours my attitude to his Nordstream "revelations".
> Compare Seymour Hersh's codswallop on the Skripal affair with the excellent work done by Bellingcat.
Done. Bellingcat exists as a parallel construction for US and British intelligence agencies and its only other purpose is to smear non-state controlled journalistic outlets. There was a leaked email from another source that indicates that even internally, US intelligence agencies don't think that Bellingcat is still a good way to spread information because normal people don't believe it any more.
On the other side, Hersh is a journalist with a long track record who wrote a story that is likely true, although we won't know until if and until comes out. Won't stop nationalists from pretending that they know something that they don't. They love a traitor.
You didn't engage with the truth of their respective Skripal affair output at all.
I could have mentioned Hersh's account of the killing of Bin Laden too. At this point his track record is a lot longer than it is good. I can't keep giving him free passes based on good work done almost 50 years ago
It's not unthinkable that they'd move the transponders for a secret mission, no?
Also Hersh's point about the NATO head being an asset in his late teens is definitely feasible, as that was exactly what the Norwegian government did at the time - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lund_Report
According to Hersh the bombs were planted during joint naval exercises. That's a time when lots of people would be surprised to see a ship sailing around with its transponders off.
Your link is about illegal electronic surveillance and contains nothing related to recruiting random Norwegian teenagers as agents in the hope that they would become General Secretaries of NATO 40 years later, and thus somehow (?) able to direct clandestine missions of the Norwegian Navy.
Let's turn it around: Is there something Hersh's source told him that was surprising and could be verified independently?
Edward Snowden was not, nor as far as I know did he ever claim to be, a journalist. He was at best a whistleblower, although given where he now lives and the citizenship he holds, it's clear that nothing he says or does can be trusted.
Being forced to seek asylum in Russia after multiple attempts to go elsewhere that were thwarted by the US (at the risk of major diplomatic incidents) makes you suspicious actually.
I mean it's like people completely forgot that the plane of a head of state was grounded by US allies in Europe because they suspected he might be smuggling Edward Snowden on board.
Edward Snowden has not been exiled in any non-misleading use of the term. He had many opportunities to return to the United States, and could do so today if his current hosts allowed it.
Right, but that’s not definitionally distinct from an accused murderer who skips the country. No one would use the term “exiled” in that case, even if they believe the accusation unjust.
The only reason to use “exiled” is to imply that Snowden is in Russia (or at least outside of the US) by someone’s choice other than his own. That’s what’s misleading about it.
I would have used legal avenues afforded to whistleblowers.
> Contrary to his public claims that he notified numerous NSA officials about what he believed to be illegal intelligence collection, the Committee found no evidence that Snowden took any official effort to express concerns about U.S. intelligence activities - legal, moral, or otherwise - to any oversight officials within the U.S. government, despite numerous avenues for him to do so. Snowden was aware of these avenues. His only attempt to contact an NSA attorney revolved around a question about the legal precedence of executive orders, and his only contact to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Inspector General (IG) revolved around his disagreements with his managers about training and retention of information technology specialists.
> Despite Snowden's later public claim that he would have faced retribution for voicing concerns about intelligence activities, the Committee found that laws and regulations in effect at the time of Snowden's actions afforded him protection. The Committee routinely receives disclosures from IC contractors pursuant to the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 (IC WPA). If Snowden had been worried about possible retaliation for voicing concerns about NSA activities, he could have made a disclosure to the Committee. He did not.
Are you kidding me? One of most powerful organizations in the world specialized on handling secrets and you want evidence?
They violate the US constitution and you expect them to hand out evidence?
There has been previous episodes of people (proved and documented) of people attempting to speak up and being silenced, imprisoned etc. Any person threatening to go to the press can be arrested for treason.
And if you look at similar organizations starting from 100 years ago you'll see the same patterns again and again: people who try to speak up are silenced in a way or another.
There are likely a lot of social-media agents in the comments. This, like any hot button political issue brings out lots of shills. Check this comment thread, the amount of downvoted comments speaks volumes about the quality of the community voting and the apparent importance of this site for political agents.
The Internet is full of bots and paid commenters but if you look at statistics on americans being interview regarding Snowden you'll find that a whole lot are buying into the propaganda. It's just an easy thing to do and it's socially acceptable, especially in very nationalistic country.
Hersh was extolled for speaking against the establishment. He was smeared for promoting outlandish claims with extremely thin sourcing.
And neither Snowden nor Assange are journalists at all. Snowden stole some docs and Assange runs a wiki. Assange also collaborated with Russian intelligence.
He had a TV show on RT which meant that he was literally on the Kremlin's payroll.
Its sort of interesting to me that in this thread there are a lot of people trying very hard to make indirect connections between Western journalists and Western governments. Here we have a direct connection between a "journalist" and a government and its dismissed as "misinformation".
Even Seymour Hersh has been smeared to discredit him now he dared speak against the establishment.
It is not journalists' role to be a mouthpiece for the government, but to challenge it.