Debating whether Julian Assange is a journalist is irrelevant. He changed journalism forever

The two most consequential Australians in history are surely Rupert Murdoch and Julian Assange. Germaine Greer would come a distant third. Unsurprisingly, Assange and Murdoch have gained their notoriety through journalism and the media. More surprising - but significant - is the fact both of them could be described as libertarians. Assange emerged from the free software, cypherpunk movement of the 1990s, which saw the great question of the times as being how a free internet and an uncensored flow of information could lead to the triumph of privacy and personal freedom over an oppressive state. When he founded WikiLeaks,…