On the London School of Economics and Political Science blog, Charlie Beckett asks the question of whether or not journalism students should be taught to be more like Julian Assange. He makes the argument that they should. He said at the beginning of his post:
“Imagine Julian Assange ran a journalism school. Why not? He’s created one of the world’s biggest media brands on a tiny budget. It’s produced some of the most extraordinary pieces of journalism in the digital era and he’s worked with all the big names. If you judge journalism by how much the people in power hate you, then he scores A*.
I think we can all learn from WikiLeaks.
Later in the post he goes on to say:
“What made WikiLeaks work was Assange’s ideological drive and his all-consuming desire to use digital communications as a political weapon. He spotted a new business model and a novel kind of platform.”
His argument is that students should learn not only what their mainstream media bosses want, but also learn new and “disruptive” ideas.
“We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests.”
