Top all-time · #4738
Jonathan Cook
Personal blog · jonathan-cook.net/blogpolitics
Jonathan Cook's personal blog at jonathan-cook.net covers politics. Since 2013, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 33 times, most often “The US is using the Guardian to justify jailing Assange for life”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (14) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Jonathan Cook's essays on the Assange case, media coverage, Israel and UK politics. Commenters cite them as commentary critical of mainstream press narratives.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 14 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Jonathan Cook, award-winning British author and journalist reporting from Nazareth on the Middle East, including the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Most-linked posts?
- The US is using the Guardian to justify jailing Assange for life4 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2020-09-25
- /blog/2020-09-26/guardian-assange-denial-deceptions/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-06-26
- Murray's jailing is latest move in a battle to snuff out independent journalism2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-07-31
What Hacker News says?
Sorry, but you've got that the wrong way round. Assange was the one who wanted careful redaction and it was his media partners at the Guardian and Der Spiegel who were impatient and wanted to publish early. In the end, it was the recklessness (perhaps malice) of the Guardian journalists which resulted in the unredacted cables being released. They published the password to decrypt the unredacted archives in their boo…
Comment linking /blog/2020-09-22/guardian-silent-assange-trial/
on “Assange case: Key witness admits he lied”Submitted The US is using the Guardian to justify jailing Assange for life as a story · 383 points
HN discussion> if we're fair there's a difference between a Journalist covering leaked stuff and literally releasing the full unredacted documents to the public. It was actually senior Guardian journalists who compromised the cables by publishing the password Assange had entrusted them with. That's what led to the unredacted copies being made available. Jonathan Cook has written about it here: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/…
Comment linking /blog/2020-09-26/guardian-assange-denial-deceptions/
on “Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment”Submitted Abuses show Assange case was never about law as a story · 246 points
HN discussionThe Scott Trust is not a non-profit. See https://expressiveegg.org/2017/02/07/guardian-bothering/ and https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2015-03-03/hsbc-and-the-s...
Comment linking /blog/2015-03-03/hsbc-and-the-sham-of-guardians-scott-trust/
on “Guardian records first operating profit since 1998”Submitted Interview of Glenn Greenwald [video] as a story · 168 points
HN discussionIt's not. Good article from former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook: HSBC and the sham of Guardian's Scott Trust https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2015-03-03/hsbc-and-the-s... The following is quoted in the piece: > The Guardian is not owned by a trust at all. In 2008, “the trust was replaced with a limited company” that was accordingly re-named “The Scott Trust Limited.” Though not a trust at all, but simply a pr…
Comment linking /blog/2015-03-03/hsbc-and-the-sham-of-guardians-scott-trust/
on “Guardian records first operating profit since 1998”Submitted Murray's jailing is latest move in a battle to snuff out independent journalism as a story · 106 points
HN discussionI disagree. https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-09-22/guardian-silen...
Comment linking /blog/2020-09-22/guardian-silent-assange-trial/
on “Assange Hearing Day 17”Submitted Journalists cheered Assange's abuse. Now they've paved his path to a US gulag as a story · 42 points
HN discussionI disagree. This is clearly a hugely important case. It's not that day 17 isn't significant to the media, it's that the whole case has been treated with hardly any interest at all from day 1. Another HN commenter pointed out earlier that the BBC, for example, devoted far more coverage to Johnny Depp's libel case than this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24491707 As for papers like the Guardian, who benefited t…
Comment linking /blog/2020-09-22/guardian-silent-assange-trial/
on “Assange Hearing Day 17”Submitted The 7 years of lies about Assange won’t stop now as a story · 12 points
HN discussionIf you believe they are a trust (they're not), you should read this https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2015-03-03/hsbc-and-the-s... and this https://expressiveegg.org/2017/02/07/guardian-bothering/
Comment linking /blog/2015-03-03/hsbc-and-the-sham-of-guardians-scott-trust/
on “US efforts to jail Assange for espionage are a grave threat to a free media”Submitted UK media, MPs unveil latest Assange deception as a story · 4 points
HN discussionIt's nice to move away from commercial journalism, I agree. But the Guardian is very much commercial journalism. See http://expressiveegg.org/2017/02/07/guardian-bothering/ and https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2015-03-03/hsbc-and-the-s...
Comment linking /blog/2015-03-03/hsbc-and-the-sham-of-guardians-scott-trust/
on “Source for theguardian.com”I think you're just making stuff up. Here is Jonathan Cook's bio: < https://www.jonathan-cook.net/about/> I don't see any relation to the Unz report nor do I understand why you're even mentioning it. The page you link to doesn't mention Johnathan Cook at all. Please provide a citation that backs up your allegation.
Comment linking /about/>
on “Abuses show Assange case was never about law”I think that this was the article I was referencing. I apologize for not linking it with my comment. https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-09-22/guardian-silen...
Comment linking /blog/2020-09-22/guardian-silent-assange-trial/
on “Password-cracking theory against Assange unravels at extradition trial”Further releasing about this, posted earlier in the week on HN. https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-09-22/guardian-silen...
Comment linking /blog/2020-09-22/guardian-silent-assange-trial/
on “Password-cracking theory against Assange unravels at extradition trial”It's worth noting that The Guardian's response to Assange's persecution left a lot to be desired[0-2] from a whistle-blowing perspective, especially against a powerful organization. That's not to say one should avoid a journalist publication for telling their story, just that it can backfire in its own way if (presumably) that publication starts to get heat from law man. 0: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2016-02…
Comment linking /blog/2020-09-26/guardian-assange-denial-deceptions/
on “Whistleblower Aid”The Swedish case i fraught with suspicious circumstances, and it is fairly certain that they don't have a case, should it come to trial. You may want to read this article, especially the paragraph that recounts how the Swedish prosecutors were told "Don't you dare get cold feet!!" by the British chief CPS lawyer after warning that they would have to drop the charges, and how that email exchange later was deleted, co…
Comment linking /blog/2018-02-12/the-uks-hidden-role-in-assanges-detention/
on “Chomsky on the arrest of Julian Assange [video]”Israel openly practices racial profiling of passengers[0], something which is not legal in the US (which must instead practice it in secret)[1][2]. I would not want to use Israel's security procedures as a model for the US for a number of reasons - the unabashed racial profiling is one, but a more basic reason is the fact that Israel faces a very real and direct threat, whereas the TSA itself admits that there is no…
Comment linking /blog/2014-03-26/israel-ends-blanket-racial-profiling-policy/
on “TSA: Some on US-bound flights must turn on phones”Meanwhile in the pro-Palestine movement, the BBC is seen as being so pro-Israel some people think their editors should be prosecuted[1]! (for what, I am unclear on) 112 BBC journalists recently signed an open letter accusing the BBC of pro-Israel bias[2]. Domestically, every single political movement feels the BBC is biased against them. Their dry reporting style is at odds with what many, especially Americans, are…
Comment linking /blog/2025-06-20/bbc-editors-trial-israel-genocide/
on “Law360 mandates reporters use AI "bias" detection on all stories”He does seem to have some questionable blog posts like >If Putin is a war criminal, then Madeleine Albright was no less of one https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2022-03-25/putin-war-criminal-...
Comment linking /2022-03-25/putin-war-criminal-madeleine-albright/
on “The British state has lost the argument”> and that he didn't filter what he published This has been debunked many times over. It's the Guardian journalists, David Leigh and Luke Harding, that published the password to the unredacted archives. Assange, on the other hand, was "meticulous about redacting names in the documents." https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-09-26/guardian-assan...
Comment linking /blog/2020-09-26/guardian-assange-denial-deceptions/
on “TikTok Spied on Me. Why?”Some more (if less impartial) background: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2021-07-30/craig-murrays-...
Comment linking /blog/2021-07-30/craig-murrays-jailing-is-the-latest-move-in-the-battle-to-snuff-out-independent-journalism/
on “Alex Salmond trial blogger hands himself in to police”> mishandle the documents https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2011-09-28/the-dangerous-cult-... > The low point in Leigh’s role in this saga is divulging in his own book a complex password Assange had created to protect a digital file containing the original and unedited embassy cables. Each was being carefully redacted before publication by several newspapers, including the Guardian. > This act of – in the most generous…
Comment linking /2022-05-04/persecution-julian-assange/
on “FBI raids Washington Post reporter's home in 'highly unusual and aggressive' act”This seems a little ... premature? Do we now have trial by TV? Worth reading: A few thoughts on the Russell Brand furore, by Jonathan Cook: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-09-17/thoughts-russe... ... The media companies now fuelling the public mood via trial by TV are the very same companies that delighted in Brand’s sex-addict persona. As the Dispatches’ archival footage and testimonies make clear, those me…
Comment linking /blog/2023-09-17/thoughts-russell-brand-furore/
on “YouTube suspends Russell Brand from making money off the streaming site”The one commissioned by Keir Starmer ? Lol. No, I haven't. At a glance though, it seems to be making the same "mistake" that you are: > Forde’s seeming even-handedness is, in fact, a continuation of factionalism by other means. The report’s implausible premise is that Corbyn and a handful of staff in the leader’s office wielded as much factional power as the combined might of Labour HQ, the parliamentary party and t…
Comment linking /2022-07-21/forde-inquiry-labour-starmer/
on “The Retaliation: Pranking My Roommate with Targeted Facebook Ads”
