Julian Assange Interview: ‘The Guardian’ Responsible For Publishing Fake News About WikiLeaks Founder, Says Journalist

The Julian Assange interview everyone is currently talking about is the one that aired on Tuesday night in which the WikiLeaks founder sat down with Fox News host Sean Hannity, but there’s also a different Julian Assange interview garnering attention at the moment.

The Guardian published an article based on a Julian Assange interview, but has now retracted some key statements because, put simply, it has been revealed the article contained false information about the interview, as reported by RT.

“Journalist Glenn Greenwald accused his former employer, the Guardian, of falsifying the words of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a report summarizing an interview he gave to La Republica.”

The title of the article had been “Julian Assange gives guarded praise of Trump and blasts Clinton in interview,” and it was written that during the Julian Assange interview with la Reppublica, he had expressed contempt for Hillary Clinton, said nothing but positive things about Donald Trump, and spoke favorably of Russia.

Glenn Greenwald, a journalist who used to work for The Guardian, called out the British publication for tweaking the content to fit a false narrative.

The Intercept published an article last week which was penned by Greenwald himself, thus giving him the opportunity to share what he knows.

“This article is about how those [Guardian‘s] false claims — fabrications, really — were spread all over the internet by journalists, causing hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) to consume false news,” Greenwald wrote.

Glenn doesn’t want his readers to focus on the Julian Assange interview that the untrue article was based on or all the controversy surrounding the man behind WikiLeaks, but rather he wants people to focus on the fact that a major publication is responsible for the purposeful mass circulation of false information.

He makes a point to mention the current public attention on “fake news” and how he believes some of the people who are most passionate about nixing fake news from widespread circulation are actually contributing to it.

The false Julian Assange interview article was written by The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs, and according to Greenwald there were two main points of the piece that were nothing short of fabrications.

The first point was written in the title, Julian Assange’s “guarded praise of Trump.”

The second fabricated point of the la Reppublica Julian Assange interview touched on the Russian hacking claim from U.S. intelligence. Jacobs wrote that Assange and Putin had a long history with one another, citing a group of 2012 interviews conducted by Assange on Russian-friendly media outlet RT as the evidence of their close relationship.

After pushing this idea of friendly relations between Assange and Putin, Jacobs claimed that during la Reppublica‘s Julian Assange interview, the WikiLeaks founder suggested that his organization, which publicized thousands of DNC emails, wasn’t needed in a country such as Russia because their government isn’t nearly as corrupt as the U.S.

But Julian never said this, and this is not just according to Glenn Greenwald, but to la Reppublica writer Stefania Maurizi, who traveled to London herself to conduct the Julian Assange interview.

.@greekemmy @NOH8ER I don't need apologies from #Guardian.I just need fair reporting

— Stefania Maurizi (@SMaurizi) January 3, 2017

Jacobs’ article went viral after publication, and Maurizi, seeing that her work was being falsified, did everything in her power to expose its lies, but her efforts have been to little avail.

“…while Western journalists keep re-tweeting and sharing The Guardian’s second-hand summary of this interview, they completely ignore Maurizi’s protests — for reasons that are both noxious and revealing.”

You don’t have to, however, take Greenwald’s word for the misinformation published by the British news agency. All you have to do is visit Maurizi’s article yourself to compare it with Jacobs’ version of this specific Julian Assange interview.

Greenwald, meanwhile, is busy exposing more of what he dubs “fake news” from the mainstream media. His latest victim is the Washington Post, whose editors were recently forced to admit to promoting a fake news story of which, like in The Guardian‘s case, had to do with the claim of Russian hacking interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Amazing https://t.co/3FXrYunENH

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 4, 2017

The Guardian‘s version of the Julian Assange interview done by la Reppublica‘s Stephania Maurizi has now been amended, but what are the chances that the people who read and believed Ben Jacobs’ fabrications about Julian will also learn the truth of the matter? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comment section below.

[Featured Image by Gil C/Shutterstock]