This kind of false equivalence and denial of nuance just makes no sense, unless you somehow want to argue that the US is EXACTLY the same as Russia or North-Korea?
Why does it have to be EXACTLY the same as Russia and North Korea to still be repression of journalism?
It's a fact that there is a repression, albeit of a different kind. Yes, instead of outright telling them what to write, the American way is to first buy up the media, put a pro-them editor in charge, and operate from there. And yes, they allow fringe journalism to exist, but stifle it so much with their money pumped own networks to make it not relevant.
So yes, Russia/China/North Korea deal differently with the free press than America. However, the results are pretty much the same: crippled journalism which doesn't have the bite to bring those in power to justice or even to scrutiny.
Assange's imprisonment and made up charges show us that, while Americans try to play nice and let money talk most of the time, if you step over the line, they are not beyond on going all KGB on you, much like their Cyrillic speaking counterparts.
I never said, nor implied it was. But a spade is a spade. Mr. Assange is being persecuted solely for an act of journalism. Even if the west is "nicer" about how they maintain authority and control, it is still authoritarian. Though, I wouldn't call solitary confinement for five years in Britain's harshest prison "nice".
Besides, once you are arguing shades of grey you've at least admitted something is at least starting to rot at the core. I prefer my government to be pure of any authoritarianism. I will not tolerate authoritarianism lite any more than I would tolerate something like North Korea.
Persecuting journalism is morally deplorable regardless whether the hand of the enforcer is wearing white gloves. Btw, in Assange's case, he got a really really harsh treatment, so I am not sure if I can even use the white gloves term.
The US govt did him really bad, he spent a tremendous amount of time in prison already, his punishment for bringing their war crimes and total disregard for civilian populations during warfare to the public.
Yes, arguably there is a bit more press freedom in the US and it's not repressed as hard and brutally as in Russia/China. In the US, soft repression mostly does the job: lobby-ism, buying up media or ruining journalists' careers for doing their job.
And when it doesn't, they can make up a false case and then become as brutal as their Russian/Chinese counterparts.
