cinemababu Biography source – thestar
• Julian Paul Assange is an Australian who studied at the University of Melbourne. He was born in 1971 in Townsville, Australia. He has no home but spends much of his time in Sweden.
• Assange describes his childhood as “pretty Tom Sawyer” and says he had his own horse and liked to fish and explore mine shafts. Despite that, he seems to have had a troubled childhood. He was home-schooled, in part because his family moved 37 times by the time he was 14. He spent part of his teen years on the run with his mother from an abusive boyfriend, who may have been a member of a cult called the Family.
Assange communicates with friends and colleagues with encrypted cellphones. He is known to travel under false names, to wear disguises and to use cash instead of credit or debit cards.
• Assange says he practices “scientific journalism” because, just as scientists provide raw data to accompany any analyses, WikiLeaks provides source material that readers can see for themselves.
• Some in the U.S., however, see Assange as not a journalist at all but a spy and a terrorist. Politicians, including Rep. Peter King of New York, are calling for Assange to be charged under the Espionage Act and believe WikiLeaks should be designated a terrorist organization.
• Assange may choose to live in Sweden because the country’s media laws are among the world’s most protective for journalists. In addition, Sweden’s Pirate Party, which advocates reform of copyright law, has agreed to host WikiLeaks’ servers, giving it additional legal protection.
• Assange became a computer hacker in his teen years. He co-wrote Underground: Tales of Hacking. In 1991, he hacked into the computer system of the Canadian telecom powerhouse Nortel. He was arrested and eventually convicted of hacking and related crimes. He served no jail time.
• Assange got married when he was 18 and has a son. He and his wife separated and in 1999, after a protracted court battle, he reached a custody agreement with his wife.
• WikiLeaks is funded by donations. It received more than $200,000 (U.S.) after the release of the Apache helicopter video alone
Yes real journalism is dying. Every main stream channel is just a propaganda running machines for corporate interests .Even though real journalists are there in these companies they don’t have the choice to choose their narratives
We are already being fed up with wrong information and the truth we are getting is very low.And we are used to it because e don’t know whom to trust.Every media channel prefers their own candidates
The quote tells about the current situation of journalism
While mainstream media giving their own news people like Assange becoming real journalists and in future we can see many more real independent journalists a in this internet era with out fear.These journalists no need to be heroes and don’t need to scarifies but alt least they should have do their job instead of reading the paper /teleprompter in suits
In recent US elections one of the main stream media anchor said that reading wikileaks is punishable because it is giving confidential information and public only should listen media narrative as media journalists can read wikileaks .They seeing public as stupid .Hope independent journalists will improve the quality of journalism and common people will get to know the truth