The “St. Kilda schoolgirl” and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange have, surprisingly, a lot in common.

Photo: AFP.

Bear with me. Just as Assange’s careful trickle of classified cables gave the broadsheets something to write about daily (The Wikileaks Saga: Day 255 -Assange grows beard), the St Kilda school girl’s systematic release of nude and suggestive photos gave her an upper hand over the mainstream news media.

While Assange comes from a journalistic and computer hacker background, and the closest Miss St Kilda has probably come is reading Dolly magazine and getting her MySpace spammed, their strategic release of classified information into the public sphere is, surprisingly, similar.

Both operate as rogue traders, away from authorities: Assange, up until his incarceration, from a Science fiction, Dr. No- style lair in underground Stockholm, where one expects Sigourney Weaver to emerge at any moment wearing a white lab coat.

Miss Saint, on the other hand, has chosen the common escape for most Melbourne 17-year-olds wanting to be debauched: a Gold Coast hotel room.

Both have fought sordid accusations. Assange has, perhaps convincingly, repeatedly denied rape charges by two Swedish women, while the St. Kilda school girl has alleged a pregnancy scandal and group sex with football players. Hmmm.

Both seem to feel disenfranchised in the face of a bigger, more powerful enterprise. For Assange, this is governments such as the US’s, which releases foreign policy information as sanitized as the White House banner behind it. While for Miss Saint K., Noel came in the form of a “Christmas present” to the St. Kilda Football Club, photos designed to bring down the supposedly “lad”/misogynist and “cover-up” culture within the AFL.

Authorities are perplexed as to how to punish both. While a Federal Court injunction prevents the St. Kilda school girl from releasing more photos and Assange has been held in the UK facing rape charges and possible extradition to the United States, what they are able to be charged with is less than clear. Theft? Defamation? Espionage? Communism?

The US Government is currently dissecting the rulebook for something with which to charge Assange, hoping that some residue of Salem or McCarthyism remains. Yet any charge of espionage would seem biased when Wikileaks cables reveal US diplomats were encouraged to “spy” on UN officials and other key players from countries around the world.

Similarly, rumours of pictures of the girl in question circulating on mobile phones long before everything hit the fan for St Kilda have spread faster than Bluetooth.

And so the question remains: could it have been easier if their face (or pixellation) had not been given to the information?

Yet they are the mouthpiece behind it, giving the public the truth as they see it. Both have the news media wrapped around their finger, be it 3AW interviews or The Guardian front pagers, due to the information at their fingertips (or keyboards).

And once it is in the public sphere, it has to be reported on.

Yet it has to be asked, to what degree is the information in the public interest? How much has it benefited us from knowing that Nick Riewoldt’s johnson also exists in digital form? Or that Senator Mark Arbib may or may not have been responsible for tipping the US Government on the Labor leadership challenge, among other things?

Riewoldt and Arbib seem to be casualties to a much bigger cause: bringing down governments and football teams, a whole culture rather than individuals.

Undoubtedly, Wikileaks has reinstated some accountability and transparency to democracy and governments around the world, opening the body bag on the true nature of the carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. No longer can documents just be placed in a shredder and relegated to the trashcan.

Yet neither can photos. “What happens on footy trip, stays on footy trip” is also no longer, when there is digital proof involved.

They say every release of information is strategic and has an agenda. So sometimes it pays to take a minute, stand back and ask what we are really being asked to consider.

14 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • The Badger says:

      11:07am | 31/12/10

      Assange needs to be waterboarded and ms St. Kilda needs to be spanked

    • Andrew says:

      09:15am | 03/01/11

      Do you trust the governments of the world then, do you, Badger? I don’t ... at least, far from fully. It has always seemed to me that it would be better if they could be made more accountable to the people they are supposed to represent. It is not certain yet that they will succeed, but Wikileaks is certainly making a powerful attempt in this direction by increasing the transparency of governments, so that we know better what they are up to. I hope Wikileaks succeed.

    • Heath Karl says:

      12:15pm | 31/12/10

      What a pathetic, small minded attack on a child, not to mention a peurile piece of journalism. At one moment, petty, rhetorical, joking, the next cynical and dramatic.

      “the closest Miss St Kilda has probably come is reading Dolly magazine and getting her MySpace spammed”. This is the equivalent of me reading this article and then making an offhand comment about how it appears your eyeliner was applied in the dark with a paintbrush.

      You say “Yet it has to be asked, to what degree is the information in the public interest?...Riewoldt and Arbib seem to be casualties to a much bigger cause: bringing down governments and football teams, a whole culture rather than individuals… sometimes it pays to take a minute, stand back and ask what we are really being asked to consider.”

      And in between “Undoubtedly, Wikileaks has reinstated some accountability and transparency to democracy and governments around the world, opening the body bag on the true nature of the carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. “

      This is the sort of vacuous analysis expected from someone with a degree in ‘communications’. On the one hand an acceptance of the seriousness of the diplomatic cables release, on the other a denigration of entire episode. By associating an extremely serious injection of secret information in the public sphere with some nothing pictures of footballers, you erroneously create a similiarity that does not exist. Doing so is an attempt to undermine the overwhelming public support for Wikileaks.

      Rather than having the “news media wrapped around their finger”, there is actually a concerted campaign to do exactly what this article has done, to try to divert the public’s attention from the actual news story.

      The article ends with this; “They say every release of information is strategic and has an agenda”. It would be charitable to describe the article as ‘information’, but it deserves to be asked, what is your strategy? what is your agenda? I believe it is to undermine Wikileaks.

    • acotrel says:

      06:07am | 03/01/11

      I suggest Miss St Kida took her revenge on footballers, and did it very well!  Perhaps a few more of the little darlings should learn from her efforts, and stay away from the jerks!

    • Tracy says:

      02:10pm | 31/12/10

      @Heath
      Wow…your reading of the text is completely different to mine…which just goes to demonstrate that meaning is in the mind of the reciever, despite an author’s intent! I read it more as a comparison of how much power is in media strategy, rather than any sort of attack on Assange or the young woman.

    • Heath Karl says:

      04:50pm | 31/12/10

      @Tracy, allow me to explain my position a little better.
      Kristy Sheridan’s article attempts to portray both Wikileaks and the St Kilda photos as part of a cunning media strategy.
          “Assange’s careful trickle of classified cables”
          “the St Kilda school girl’s systematic release”
          “their strategic release of classified information”
          “every release of information is strategic and has an agenda”

      But this is merely the setting of the scene. She goes on to make a non-point; “Both operate as rogue traders, away from authorities”, and another non-point “Both have fought sordid accusations”, and another “Both seem to feel disenfranchised in the face of a bigger, more powerful enterprise”. It would be folly to suggest the author related these ‘facts’ by accident. They were done on purpose. Perhaps it was to heighten the sense of similarity, or perhaps it was to create in the mind of the responder a sense that both are fringe-dwellers with a chip-on-their shoulder, and therefore unreliable. I think to accept the former is to give the communications graduate too little credit.

      She descends even further with what I think is a bizzare interpretation.
          “once it is in the public sphere, it has to be reported on”
      and then on with an urging of public scepticism toward both Assange’s and the “St Kilda schoolgirl’s” motives.

      She portrays herself, as a participant in the media, as the victim. The media, according to her allusions, are the unwitting pawns moving in response to two people who are acting with agenda and strategy. The story is not the story, it is the ‘faces’ behind the story, and necessarily their motives. I believe this is cloak-and-dagger business.

      “The meaning is in the mind of the receiver”. This is a shallow analysis. It is patently inadequate. The meaning of the story is determined by both the responder and the author. It is, at a minimum, twofold.

      Unfortunately I dont think you gave the article the depth of analysis that public commentary deserves.

    • mary says:

      03:27pm | 31/12/10

      Funny that, I read it as a whole new era in communications. Blissfully for once the public (wikileaks and girl) having a voice. Viva the underdog.

      I for one am ecstatic (with the wikileaks etc phenomena) to have some realism and truth injected into the media and not merely journalists conjecture and/or cleanly washed government propaganda.

    • Kate says:

      07:34pm | 31/12/10

      Bit of a stretch to compare the two. Assange’s actions may have caused governments to have a serious think about their information sharing practices - the St Kilda girl has not ‘brought down’ a football club and in a few months nobody will remember her name. As it should be.

    • Cross says:

      07:58am | 01/01/11

      Surely this is just a case of WikiLeaks v WikiDicki

    • Red says:

      09:31am | 01/01/11

      I see it as dichotomous hypocrisy. The media lauds Wikileaks, publishing every embarrassing tidbit while on the other hand is complicit in covering up the whole Dikileaks story.

    • Paul says:

      10:16am | 01/01/11

      PROBLEM
      to many privacies on the interwebs dissapearing

      REACTION
      shock horror in the media and an all out bashing for the people comming out with what appears to be the truth.

      SOLUTION
      INTERNET LAWS FOR YOUR SAFETY.

      So Problem created by Government, Reaction by Government incitement by media.

      Solution Government Internet laws just to keep you in the dark and fed full of Bulls%^t.

      Enjoy your meal Australia,  you seem like you cant get enough of this crap.

    • Ryan says:

      11:32am | 01/01/11

      @Paul: agreed, and look at the government that are doing it. What is true is that this Labor government clearly has something to hide so they are enacting Chinese style communist laws so they are answerable to no-one when they decide to implement their one party state in their desperate cling to power. Mugabe and Gillard have so much in common its frightening.

    • Jane says:

      08:52am | 03/01/11

      The difference is that the “St Kilda schoolgirl” leaks are locally embarrassing while the Assange leaks are internationally irresponsible.

    • Elizabeth says:

      12:14am | 06/01/11

      I hope it comes to light who sent her the texts about participating in group sex - the transcript made my flesh crawl. Clearly someone predatory taking advantage and manipulating a vulnerable teenager, using his “status” to demean and use. Once named other women should understand exactly how this man views women - after thanking her for doing the group sex “because he wanted her to” he immediately suggests she bring a female next time so they could watch some female on female action! She should do it for the team. I have no idea what women see in these sorts of men, I wouldn’t let him take out my rubbish bin!
      If group sex is happening as a team activity at St Kilda, it’s disturbing, disappointing and shows a deep disrespect for women.  No wonder they keep losing the Grand Final, perhaps they should concentrate on football for a change - I’m sick to death of these scandals.

 

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