Can Assange and Denton revive the Wikileaks-Gawker revolution?

Two of journalism’s most radical figures are now silenced, or shunned. Nick Denton, the Brit whose Gawker website has whipped away the lace curtains that covered (mainly) sexual privacy since 2002, has been bankrupted by vengeful and wealthy men.

Julian Assange, the Australian whose Wikileaks organization has revealed (mainly) U.S. secrets, has been left alone and friendless — dropped even by one-time allies after dumping troves of unredacted information taken from the files of U.S. and Turkish political parties.

Both men tried to create new standards for investigative journalism; both have failed so far. They’ve failed in their efforts to emulate the paper that sees itself, with some justification, as fashioning the model for that brand of reporting -- the New York Times. The Times has, for more than a century, stated its guiding principle on the top left-hand corner of its front page. “All the News That’s Fit to Print” was chosen as the paper’s slogan by Arthur Ochs in 1896, the year he bought the publication. It was meant to differentiate the Times from the popular “yellow press” that, like Gawker, specialized in gossip, if way less racy. Ochs wanted to attract, by a display of ethical propriety, the burgeoning, respectable bourgeoisie of the city.

The New York Times has long taken the lead in publishing the secrets of U.S. (and other) administrations--but shorn of personal details. If it tore aside a veil concealing a sex scandal, it did so with reluctance and justified its decision to publish to itself and to its readers on the grounds of public interest. Joseph Lelyveld, editor during the hottest period of the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair, was genuinely conflicted about whether or not the story was fit to print. Because it was at the centre of a move to impeach the president, it was.

The New York Times’ stature has made it a template for the respectable press. The British and other tabloids have always thumbed their noses at such propriety So does the new generation of leakers, who think “fit to print” is mainly cowardice in the face of government disapproval.

Assange was never a mainstream journalist, and has always scorned the tribe. Denton was a journalist. We worked together in December 1989, in Bucharest, after the fall and subsequent murder of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu. Denton allowed me to join him at an interview he had arranged with Silviu Brucan, a figure high in the Communist Party who had turned against Ceaucescu, and which landed me a huge scoop. Denton lacked the feral quality that reporters tend to develop: His was an act of surprising generosity. In the way of human nature, I have ever since been well disposed to him.

As the former Gawker staffer Jia Tolentino wrote recently, Denton’s managing style was to create no hierarchy, to encourage his staff to dig without inhibition and to follow their own path. When “fit to read” news people came to see him, he was politely dismissive of them, telling James Fallows of The Atlantic that he was catering to those “who don’t want to eat the boring vegetables.”

But Denton’s self-starting staff crossed two rich and angry men. One was the wrestler Hulk Hogan, incensed when Gawker published part of a video showing him having sex with a friend’s wife. Hogan took Gawker Media to court and won a total of $140 million in March. Hogan’s suit was bankrolled by Peter Thiel, a billionaire whom Gawker had outed as gay in 2007. At last month’s GOP convention, Thiel told the audience that, “I’m proud to be gay. I’m proud to be a Republican.” Gawker, for its part, went proudly bankrupt.

Assange is still working, though he refuses to leave his stifling sanctuary in Ecuador’s tiny London embassy. He outraged fellow leaker Edward Snowden when Wikileaks dumped files purloined from the Democratic National Committee and the Turkish ruling AKP party. Snowden thinks Assange’s release of uncurated personal information — the Turkish files include a database of female voters -- broke the unwritten code of the new journalism.

Assange, though not a reporter himself, uses journalists to get his information out. He sees the institutions of government as webs of hypocrisy and mendacity. He believes political and corporate leaders undermine citizens’ rights with their hidden, self- interested maneuvering for ever more power and ever larger profits. The never ending saga of the sensational Sheena Bora murder case continues to baffle, with audio tapes featuring conversations between the prime accused Indrani Mukerjea, her media tycoon husband Peter Mukerjea and his son Rahul being leaked to the media. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which took over the probe of the ghastly killing last year, is yet to conclude its findings despite presenting two charge-sheets before the relevant court. The matter was handed over to the premier investigating agency after the Mumbai police was seen dragging its feet amidst allegations of an attempt being made by some officials to help in the cover up of the crime. The high profile case also led to the then Mumbai police commissioner Rakesh Maria losing his position as the city’s top cop and there were reports published in several newspapers that he had known the Mukerjeas pretty well.

The Sheena Bora case has all the ingredients of a crime potboiler and prior to the arrest of Peter Mukerjea, the investigating agencies had rounded up Indrani, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyamvar Rai in connection with the brutal slaying of the 24-year-old. The latest round of leaks seems to have been prompted by certain vested interests wanting to once again bring the issue into public domain. The manner in which the audio tapes were discussed threadbare on several TV channels gave the impression that there was going to be an extra judicial trial in the case. While the court is already seized of the matter and is examining the evidence presented by the prosecution, there is a clear attempt to influence the deliberations by igniting a public debate.

The CBI, which has taken an inordinately long time to wrap up the case, still remains hazy on the motive of the crime. There has been wild speculation that financial dealings could have led to the conspiracy to eliminate Sheena, yet no clinching evidence to support the claim has been put forward so far. At one point, the CBI detectives were also trying to ascertain whether Peter Mukerjea had at any time developed an intimacy with his wife’s daughter from an earlier marriage. It is imperative for the CBI to first clearly establish the reason for Sheena’s killing in order to strengthen its case against the accused persons.

Peter Mukerjea is considered by many in the Mumbai police as a person who did not actually take part in the conspiracy to do away with Sheena. However, it is assumed that at some stage he got to know that there was something foul that had happened to Sheena, but feigned ignorance given that his wife was allegedly involved in the plot. The leaked tapes now are trying to fill in the gaps and are thus substantiating the belief that Peter was an active participant in the murder and knew all along that Indrani had strangled her daughter and disposed of her body with the help of her other accomplices.

Ideally speaking, such an inference should have been arrived through meticulous investigation based on solid evidence and irrefutable material. However, this is not what has happened and if the tapes have been released by the CBI or the Mumbai police, it is evident that someone wants to ensure that Peter Mukherjee does not get the benefit of doubt at any stage and is shamed and convicted by a media trial much before the court reaches its verdict.

The murder mystery investigations have multiple loopholes. The Mumbai police had faltered from accurately carrying out the nishandehi (re-enactment of the sequence of crime) to collection of incriminatory evidence from the Mukerjea household to begin with. The police conducted the first search of the house eight to ten days after Indrani Mukerjea had been arrested, something which indeed was appalling. The elementary steps taken in every small investigation had not been adhered to and the CBI finally was asked by the anxious Maharashtra government to join the probe. It should not come as a surprise if the Mumbai police has not fully cooperated with the CBI and has instead tried to present a deceptive picture to the detectives.

The court, therefore, has an uphill task of examining the evidence presented to it on one hand and on the other prevent any kind of extra judicial influence to impact the final outcome. There have been high profile cases where the media has succeeded in changing the manner in which the learned judge has been thinking. Therefore, in such cases, the judgements may satisfy journalists, but leave a lot to be desired so far as the implementation of the rule of law is concerned. The Sheena Bora case is by no means an ordinary murder. It is the consequence of a well conceived plot by powerful and influential people. These people also have equally formidable enemies and thus could find themselves at the receiving end of things which they did to others in the past.

The leaked tapes, as such, do not bring any new dimension to the case. Therefore, the CBI should continue to look for strong proof to substantiate any theory that is presented before the court. It is only then that justice would be served to Sheena Bora. Between us.