Snowden -- Glenn Greenwald's Response

Apparently, some establishment journalists have decided that the way to save a discredited and dying industry is to fill articles and columns speculating about the news-gathering process on a significant story in which they had no involvement, and thus traffic in innuendo-laden "questions" designed to imply elaborate and nefarious conspiracy theories. So be it: I don't think that will work - I think what readers want are fact-based revelations about those in power - but feel free to try.

But making up facts along the way, as you've done, should still be deemed unacceptable. At the very least, they merit a prominent correction.

All of this is independent of the fact that the conspiracy theory you've concocted is just laughable on its own terms. The very notion that Julian Assange would have masterminded this leak from the start, but then chose to remain demurely and shyly in the background so that others would receive credit for it, would prompt choking fits of laughter among anyone who knows him. Your suggestion that Assange would refrain from having WikiLeaks publish these documents, and instead direct these news-breaking leaks to The Guardian of all places - with which he has a bitter, highly publicized and long-standing feud - is even more hilarious.