I'm glad someone wrote up an article about this. I'm actually for the kind of transparency he's promoting; and I think his work has shown that governments cannot and should not be allowed to hide from the truth. He's a brave new pioneer into the kind of work the 'free press' should be doing - but do not because of their limitations (should all reporters know basic hacking techniques in the future - question for another time). WRT the article, referring to his org as a cult is a bit much (but I'm sure there's elements in there as there always are), but here's the real problem with his organization:
His organization has and gets very secret information. This information is often so powerful/secret/damning that could potentially bring down banks, companies, individuals, or maybe even countries or at least their regimes. There are a number of problems with a sole person with this much power.
How do we know if he's not 'cherry-picking' information and just releasing what he wants to cause the reaction he wants? Does he fact-check anything he releases at all? We know news organizations Fox/NPR/et al can do exactly this to sway public opinion. Just because he's releasing information doesn't mean he's releasing ALL the information that would paint a full picture. It doesn't tell us if he's at all modified or tampered with that information. Unless the person who's accused comes out with counter-proof (if there is even a way if the leaked info was purely made up anyway), there is no way to know without a LOT of fact checking of likely terribly secret stuff. But the damage would be done by then. At best it turns into a credibility war; and with no transparency on either side - who are we to believe?
With information so central and key to financial and government systems, what is to keep Assange and co from going rouge and extorting or holding companies, countries or people for blackmail? "Just leave me alone Obama or I'll dump all that stuff about those drone strike kills you ordered". "Ok Goldman, give me 5 million dollars/year and a Lear jet or I leak how you knew about the housing collapse and fed into it" He very well could have information right now that could upset major governments and/or financial institutions, bankrupt huge corporations, and plunge the world into chaos/worse recession. With as somewhat unstable as he seems at times - do you really trust one man bouncing from country to country - living in hotel rooms - to make decisions to 'do the right thing' at all times?
These are all the exact same problems that news organizations have. They must fact check, and release information in a way that promotes truth in our organizations without destroying the very things we need to survive in a modern world. He has none of these burdens.