Assessment Four: Annotated Bibliography

Sackville, Ronald. (2009). Let truth and falsehood grapple: Milton as a dubious guide to some questions about free speech. Australian Journalism Review, 31(1), 107-120.

This article is the text of Justice Ronald Sackville’s, a Judge of Appeal in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, address given at the Freedom of Speech Conference, plus some additions. This article surrounds the topic of freedom of speech, John Milton’s writings regarding this topic and the legal side of freedom of expression and freedom of speech. Sackville refers to the ethical side of journalism, claiming that it is not often that ethics are taken into primary considerate before an article is published. He then includes a postscript in which he refers to The Australian’s criticism of part of his address that regarded an article he mentioned in his address. Sackville concludes that often phrases such as ‘freedom of speech’ and the ‘right to know’ simplify “the nature of issues requiring informed debate.” (Sackville, 2009) As Sackville’s article draws from a wide range of sources, and an in depth analysis of the relationship between the legal system and the media it can be deemed a reliable source. Although it may not be helpful as a whole if arguing for or against freedom of speech from a journalistic point of view, Sackville makes many points that would be useful to an argument of this nature.

 

McCullagh, Declan. (September 26 2012). Julian Assange lashes out at ‘neo-McCarthyist fervor’ in U.S. Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57521057-38/julian-assange-lashes-out-at-neo-mccarthyist-fervor-in-u.s/

This news report written by Declan McCullagh for the CNet website explores the ongoing Julian Assange fiasco. This particular article covers the legal action the United States of America is taking regarding Assange’s website WikiLeaks’ sources. The document summarises the persecution of Assange and one possible informer, Bradley Manning, who may face the death penalty if convicted of the charges he faces. This article supports some of Sackville’s points, commenting that if Assange is charged under the American Espionage Act it could be a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of the freedom of the press. As CNet is a product of the American CBS channel, it is not entirely helpful or reliable. CBS is a form of commercial media and thus driven by profit and not the requirement to give the public an unbiased opinion. In the case of McCullagh’s article, he avoids most bias and delivers a largely factual account of this topic. Unfortunately, McCullagh’s article lacks a depth of sophisticated inquiry and thus is at risk of complying with what Sackville noted as omissions of the press.

Dorling, Phillip. (September 27 2012). US calls Assange ‘enemy of state’. Retrieved from http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/political-news/us-calls-assange-enemy-of-state-20120927-26m7s.html

Phillip Dorling’s article, published on the Brisbane Times website, is very similar to the for mentioned article by Declan McCullagh. Dorling claims the US military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States, and deems supporters of the site that provide Assange with documents may be charged with communicating with the enemy, and as McCullagh stated, the maximum sentence for this is death. Dorling’s article differs from McCullagh’s as it includes more information and therefore more depth. Not only does he include more of a context than McCullagh does, briefly summarising why Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and also including why the US government wants him extradited. Dorling’s article expands on why Assange’s potential charges are invalid, but without portraying obvious bias. Assange purely leaked documents from government agencies and officials, something that many journalists have done in the past and have not had to face a possible death penalty. Sackville’s speech supports this; the press has a right to publish what it does, as long as it does not incite violence, include defamatory content and does not omit facts to alter the reader’s judgment. The Brisbane Times is part of the Fairfax Media company, which is a commercial media company like CBS. Although it cannot be deemed reliable as a whole, from the analysis it can be deemed a source that would be helpful when coupled with Sackville’s document.

 

ABC News. (September 27 2012). Assange addresses UN on human rights. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-27/assange-un-address/4283354

The ABC News website’s article on Julian Assange’s address to the United Nations uses some of the same information that McCullagh and Dorling articles did. Unfortunately, it does not go into much depth, as a result of being an internet article, but captures the main element the previous two documents did. It also includes parts of Assange’s speech to the UN in which he condemned Barack Obama’s policies regarding Assange’s WikiLeaks site and claimed Obama contradicts himself, as he has made many statements regarding freedom of speech. The ABC includes that Bradley Manning, a figure mentioned in McCullagh and Dorling’s articles, has been held in custody for 856 days, and been psychologically tortured and abused due to his involvement with WikiLeaks. This article, although small, explicitly illustrates the obvious issue of freedom of the press, as Assange has a right to publish the documents Manning provided, given they were not of a defamatory nature and did not omit important elements of the nature of the situation. In comparison to McCullagh and Dorling’s articles in relation to Sackville’s speech, the ABC article is the most successful in addressing the issues Sackville mentions. Given the ABC is a public broadcasting network; it does not face the same possibly compromising issues of CNet and the Brisbane Times, and thus can be deemed the most reliable of the three.