Some say journalism is the first draft of history. But history is a cruel mistress, a weighing machine that judges our behaviour across the ethics and principles of time, not the daily cut and thrust of the news cycle.
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This week we witnessed simultaneously two events that history will regard with a degree of bemusement, perhaps contempt.
For on the very day Australia acted to protect two correspondents for the ABC and Nine News, we saw another media publisher - and arguably a journalist of world renown - left to languish in maximum security, facing literally Trumped up charges that could see him face 175 years in one of the world's maximum security jails, home to serial killers and mass terrorists.
That man, Julian Assange, faces being buried alive - essentially being given a death sentence if he is extradited from the UK to the US to face a case that everybody knows is rigged.
Western democracy is built upon the free flow of information. From the Gutenberg press to the internet, information has been the lifeblood of our post-Renaissance civil society.
And at times this means uncomfortable truths come to light - often about those who have the most to lose if the truth is revealed.
As George Orwell observed: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want published; everything else is public relations." Of course Orwell really meant publishing.
That's why the US constitution enshrines freedom of speech. That's why organisations here such as the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom are campaigning for media law reform. Even they acknowledge Assange is part of the media ecosystem.
Still, the silence on the plight of Assange - both in the broader media and amongst the political spectrum - is deafening.
And depressingly worrying.
They say that the first casualty of war is truth, and certainly it's evident that Assange is another casualty of the Iraq War for telling the truth, just like his fellow media colleagues shot dead.
Publishers, journalists and whistleblowers have all contributed mightily to revealing truths various governments seek to hide.
In recent decades there been a slew of notable examples, including the Pentagon Papers - Daniel Ellsberg's revelations concerning the futility of the Vietnam War - and Philip Agee's CIA Diary, regarding the various illegal activities of the US in destroying democracies around the globe.
There was British journalist Duncan Campbell, who discovered the British equivalent of Pine Gap in the GCHQ, as well as Peter Wright's Spycatcher and the moles inside MI5 and MI6, revealed to the world because of the hard work of a young Australian lawyer and later prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull.
The fight for media freedom globally, including within the Five Eyes states (the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - with Israel as an ex-officio partner) has never been more fiercely fought. Let's just say its necessity is another reflection of the march from democracy to authoritarianism.
And right at the heart of this stands Julian Assange, the classic sacrificial lamb.
Some try to be cute, claiming Assange is not a journalist. Others, such as ABC News executive editor and head of investigative journalism John Lyons, say any such distinctions are irrelevant.
But we know why the US wants people to believe Assange is a "hacker", not a journalist or publisher - this denies him any constitutional freedom of speech protection.
Any who seek to deny Assange such protection, including the Australian government, are thus being complicit in his persecution.
Let's recall what Assange did.
He set up a mechanism, Wikileaks, to allow anyone to provide to the public information of deep concern - often of criminal concern. The infamous Collateral Murder footage published by Wikileaks is a war crime and snuff movie available night and day on YouTube.
Of course it is now commonplace for news organisations to have such mechanisms, having copied Wikileaks' lead - yet they, too, now stand mute regarding his plight.
Collateral Murder showed the cold-blooded slaughter of innocent people, including media representatives, via a series of airstrikes made by two US helicopters in Iraq in 2007.
They say that the first casualty of war is truth, and certainly it's evident that Assange is another casualty of the Iraq War for telling the truth, just like his fellow media colleagues shot dead.
By all means fight for journalists and media freedom, but don't make Julian Assange the exception to this principle.
We don't get to choose the battles here: you either believe in media freedom or you don't.
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This week we witnessed in stark relief the hypocrisy, not just of the government but also of the media and others who should know better, including our politicians. As former foreign minister Bob Carr noted, in failing to defend Assange Australia gives away its standing to campaign for other journalists affected by extreme state abuse, to whit Cheng Lei, currently detained in China.
To borrow from Orwell, evidently "some journalists are good, but some are better than others".
History, however, doesn't work that way. She sifts and sees the hypocrisy and self-interest.
It's all recorded and no one gets to avoid accountability.
Anyone who cares or thinks for a moment about the Assange situation must realise that failure to secure his freedom will reap a banquet of consequences for us all.
Media freedom will be curtailed, and a "chilling effect" - a phrase much loved by lawyers and politicians alike - will descend over our freedom of speech and thought.
Sadly, the banquet of consequences will be a bitter meal for our democracy and for us all.
- Tony Nagy is a former journalist at The Age who writes on politics and culture. Greg Barns SC is an adviser to the Australian Assange Campaign.
