Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website, is wanted by Interpol, today’s Dongguan Times announces under the headline “You Know Too Much”.
The framing of the story, with Assange’s mouth blocked in the front-page image and an inside page headline quoting Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin charge that WikiLeaks had been deceived, give the impression that Interpol’s “Red Notice” was issued in response to the website’s whistle-blowing activities. In July, the website published a huge cache of confidential documents dealing with American activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, and this week it released 250,000 classified diplomatic cables.
The actual reason — Swedish prosecutors are seeking Assange in connection to allegations of sex crimes and requested the international police organization’s help in extraditing him — is first mentioned in the story’s third paragraph, by which point the reader is inclined to believe the theory that the charges are part of a smear campaign against WikiLeaks.
Today’s top headline: “Public and private kindergartens may adopt unified pricing.” A three-year nationwide early-education campaign has kicked off, and Dongguan is doing its part to solve the problem of expensive kindergartens. It has the ambitious goal of satisfying the public within five years.
- Dongguan Times (Chinese): WikiLeaks founder Assange wanted by Interpol; Putin: WikiLeaks has been tricked
- ChinaGeeks: Birth of a party line