Live from house arrest, it’s the Julian Assange show

RT, the Russian government-funded, English-language satellite network, announced today that it’s launching a new series hosted by none other than WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. From the press release:  ­The show, arguably the most anticipated news series of 2012, will feature ten "iconoclasts, visionaries and power insiders" – people Assange can clearly identify with, being a rather ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.
Oli Scarff/Getty Images
Oli Scarff/Getty Images
Oli Scarff/Getty Images

RT, the Russian government-funded, English-language satellite network, announced today that it's launching a new series hosted by none other than WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. From the press release

RT, the Russian government-funded, English-language satellite network, announced today that it’s launching a new series hosted by none other than WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. From the press release

­The show, arguably the most anticipated news series of 2012, will feature ten "iconoclasts, visionaries and power insiders" – people Assange can clearly identify with, being a rather controversial figure himself. The 40-year-old Australian media and internet entrepreneur will get to talk about the issues of the day with those he believes will shape "the world tomorrow."

In his own words, the world-famous Wikileaks founder is "a pioneer of a more just world and a victim of political repression" which is why he promises to deliver a new type of television. Many are already wondering whether it will be as explosive as the biggest mass disclosure of secret documents in US history, also orchestrated by Assange and his team.

The show will be filmed at the very location that Julian Assange has been under house arrest for the last year and a half, with the first episode to be shot just a week before Assange’s Supreme Court hearing in the UK. He has been on conditional bail for 414 days, with no charges officially filed, as he fights extradition to Sweden.

Wikileaks has halted publication of documents in order to raise money, but Assange has managed to stay in the headlines lately, giving a high-profile interview to Rolling Stone‘s Michael Hastings.  It will be interesting to see which "iconoclasts" Assange picks as his subjects, and if he uses the show as a platform to mount his defense. 

Assange has a longstanding relationship with RT. He gave one of his first interviews around the time of the "Collateral Murder" video to the network’s Alyona Minkovski and received generally sympathetic coverage from the network throughout the "cablegate" saga.

Hosting a show on a network funded by an authoritarian government might seem to contradict Assange’s political principles — he once claimed to be in posession of comprising materials about Russian politicians and businessmen but doesn’t seem to have ever released them — but as his likely deportation to Sweden approaches, he may be getting desperate for a high-profile platform.

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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