Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian writer who posts political commentary on WikiLeaks, Assange, Syria and media coverage of U.S. foreign policy.
HN links it in debates over Assange, Syria and censorship. Commenters question the credibility of its claims even while reading the text.
Maybe another way I'd frame the issue is that there are 2 orthogonal themes.
1, whether the structural incentives of the institution is altogether aligned with the interests of the common working people (http://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories-on-bernie-sanders-in-16-hours/) or with the financial elites (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/cia-funded-washington-post-lets-tomahawk-missile-lobbyist-write-pro-war-editorials-without-47aab73a47c4), and
2, whether the publication follows scientific rigor to produce in-depth factual investigations (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-atlantic-commits-malpractice-selectively-edits-to-smear-wikileaks-65ecd7c2468f)
It sounds like you're mainly addressing the second theme (i.e. they're less prone to just making things up). Though I'd argue they're not 'serious' institutions on both fronts.
On the one hand, they're less likely to even attempt to enter into discussion about whether to think about starting to investigate the types of stories that are detrimental to the elite consensus (When's the last time WaPo wrote about the 99% or DAPL or TiSa or had an opinion about this last $700 billion pentagon budget?). The same way how political bribes work. We think politicians get bribed to vote a certain way. It's way way too late by that point. Politicians get bribed to stop items from entering into the agenda for select committees so it'll never reach any assemblies for votes.
On the other hand, though large…
>>>Russia backed Assad in Syria, who attacked his own citizens with chemical weapons
That position is suspect given the growing number of whistleblowers coming out from the OPCW stating that evidence pointing to the rebels behind the worst attacks was suppressed while compiling their reports.[1][2]
>>>Their main strategy was to target the moderate anti government factions
The main strategy was to secure the major population centers of Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo, and secure the highway that links them and runs North-South through the whole country. These areas were largely held by a mix of moderates as well as al-Qaeda-adjacent jihadists (Jabat Al-Nusra, HTS, etc.). The least-moderate factions were largely near the Turkish border in Idlib (no surprise, this is how foreign hardline fighters were flooding into the country), or deep in the eastern desert (ISIS spilled over from Iraq). The Syrian Army was in no position to bypass its biggest cities, extend its supply routes (given the Army's non-existent logistical capability), and expose its flanks to attack the "REALLY bad guys" first instead of the "just kinda-bad guys".
[1]https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/opcw-losing-credibility-as-even-more-revelations-surface-on-douma-755a0621710b
[2]https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/new-opcw-leak-further-vindicates-skeptics-establishment-syria-narrative
> He was, at best, and I think this strains intellectual credulity, an unwitting Russian asset. In reality, he was likely a willing Russian asset based on the evidence.
Based on what evidence? Assange stated that "our source is not the Russian government or any state party." So I'm curious what evidence you've seen to say it was.
> ...his behavior and the timing of the leaks was morally bankrupt and actively trying to influence US elections in a particular direction benefitting a particular party.
I assume by this you mean he was trying to help Trump. Again, I don't see any evidence for this. See for example this article by Caitlin Johnstone which outlines why this isn't plausible: https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/assange-smear-18-he-was-a-trump-supporter-92db307784d7
She writes:
> In July 2016 Assange compared the choice between Clinton and Trump to a choice between cholera and gonorrhea, saying, “Personally, I would prefer neither.” When a Twitter user suggested to Assange in 2017 that he start sucking up to Trump in order to secure a pardon, Assange replied, “I’d rather eat my own intestines.”
Not to mention of course that it's now the Trump administration that's pursuing him and trying to send him to a US prison.
Why You Should Oppose The Censorship Of David Icke (Hint: It’s Got Nothing To Do With Icke)
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/why-you-should-oppose-the-censorship-of-david-icke-hint-its-got-nothing-to-do-with-icke-4cb72d19481c
> A truly free being does not need an alliance of plutocrats and government agencies to protect their mind from David Icke. A truly free being does not want an alliance of plutocrats and government agencies to exert any control whatsoever over what ideas they are permitted to share and what thoughts they are permitted to think. A truly free being opposes with all their might any attempt to lock in a paradigm where human communication (and thereby thought) is controlled by vast unaccountable power structures which benefit from the absence of dissent.
> Be a truly free being. Oppose this intrusion into your mental sovereignty.
Here are some better pointers:
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/russiagate-explained-721cb5843857
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/russiagaters-are-the-very-worst-kind-of-conspiracy-theorists-bdeb0f4e496b
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/russiagate-is-making-everyone-stupid-dd8f56449101
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/10-trump-administration-atrocities-going-under-reported-amid-russia-hysteria-35dc07cd9393
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-problem-with-the-clinton-russia-collusion-narrative-49facda6ad41
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/clintonists-suddenly-claiming-its-perfectly-normal-to-do-oppo-research-with-russians-98ee884e04a4
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/how-to-criticize-trump-without-being-an-establishment-hack-153a11dddf1b
For those who don’t want to watch this on YouTube, whether this source is at all credible I have no idea, but at least it’s text;
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/confirmed-chemical-weapons-assessment-contradicting-official-syria-narrative-is-authentic-fbcbf7ef281a
Something from a more “mainstream” site;
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/douma-syria-opcw-chemical-weapons-chlorine-gas-video-conspiracy-theory-russia-a8927116.html