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Well I'm here, but that's neither here nor there. So is Pat Farmer the ultra-marathon runner and former federal parliamentarian who has received a little coverage as he charges around Washington, acclimatising for his run from pole to pole.

But the big Australian name in town is Julian Assange who featured on CBS Sixty Minutes on Sunday, and the same day was the subject of a long article by Bill Keller, the paper's Executive Editor, in The New York Times Magazine. They provided sharp contrasts.


In his Sixty Minutes interview Assange presented a somewhat different image than hitherto delineating WikiLeaks as simply a publisher who relies on others for materials. Publishers are free to publish, or disseminate to others, but sources-for example anyone in the military- may have obligations of secrecy. Assange batted back questions with aplomb, as noted by Dan Gillmor in Salon. Generally the program and Assange played to mixed reviews (that link includes the video).

There was no repeat of words used in this interview two weeks ago

"WikiLeaks has 'terrorized' politicians from Kenya to Kansas over the last four years. Quite a few have lost office as a result," Assange said. "That doesn?t mean we are 'terrorists'?it means we doing our job. We intend to 'terrorize' Peter King (the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security committee calling for a ban on WikiLeaks from doing business in the U.S) Hillary Clinton, corrupt CEOs and all the rest for many years to come, because that is what the people of the world demand."

Along these lines, the Keller article, about  the NYT"s dealing with Assange reminded that he  has previously been happy to be portrayed as something much more, a man with an agenda. Keller describes how it was often difficult to work with Assange, calling him "arrogant, thin-skinned, conspiratorial and oddly credulous" as well as "elusive, manipulative and volatile."

Gillmor says Assange came across on Sixty Minutes as "much less threatening to the United States audience that has been so thoroughly propagandized by the government and other major media" and that he reinforced the value of journalism in general, and investigative journalism in particular.

I've heard positive comment here about how in this batch at least WikiLeaks has acted reasonably and responsibly in working with its mainstream media partner. Most agree that the indiscriminate nature of the leaks suggests the leaker isn't a principled whistleblower. Good to see the PM understands the moral force of whistleblowing.

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