

Julian Assange Starts Talk Show On Russian TV - joejohnson
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/arts/television/julian-assange-starts-talk-show-on-russian-tv.html

======
redcircle
Wow, this is quite a rewrite of history:

"His reputation has taken a deep plunge since he shook the world in 2010 by
releasing, in cooperation with The New York Times and several other news
organizations, masses of secret government documents, including battlefield
reports from Iraq and Afghanistan. Most news organizations edited and redacted
the papers to protect lives. Mr. Assange put everything on his Web site."

The author skips the part about how Assange initially published redacted
material, but then one of the "other news organizations" published the
encryption key to the whole archive, making the redactions irrelevant.

------
yread
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDLXPpooA18>

It's interesting they cut out all the translations.

I also wondered whether it was done in fact via a live video link. If Israel
found out about it, it wouldn't take them long to trace the position and
assassinate Nasrallah with an air strike. It would be much more practical to
just send him the questions and then watch the answers and nod approvingly...

~~~
nextstep
If it was in fact pre-recorded, they did a good job splicing it together.

------
twelvechairs
Nasrallah was an interesting person to hear interviewed (though I obviously
don't agree with everything that he says). The NYT omits to really mention
that you don't hear interviews with him in the west because (AFAIK) it is
questionably legal to do so with the leader of a designated 'terrorist
organisation'.

Assange asked some difficult questions. I do wonder whether questions were
'agreed' in advance though, or heavily edited, as Narallah turned them around
very quickly.

------
jackfoxy
Ah, Russia! Land of free speech, transparency, and the rule of law.

~~~
orblivion
As a libertarian it always bothered me that the Kremlin thought it was in
their best interest to have Adam Kokesh on the air.

------
cantbecool
I didn't know that secret locations had access to high bandwidth feeds. It
definitely wouldn't be too difficult to figure out where he was. I wonder what
web service they used to conduct the interview?

------
GigabyteCoin
As much as I love and support wikileaks, I can't help but think that being
associated with RT will only weaken their "power".

However, they need the money apparently, and I assume this gig pays pretty
well.

~~~
Produce
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
True. But a propaganda spewing news network is still a propaganda spewing news
network.

It just makes him out to be more of an enemy in the eyes of the common
American is all I am saying.

He had the support of the people before and not the government. Get in bed
with the Russian government and you will lose support of the people too.

~~~
grimboy
He's not getting in bed with them. I'm sure if he finds he can no longer say
what he wants to say he will stop. It's a purely pragmatic decision afaics.

------
cft
What a joke about Nasrallah "secret location": he had live high bandwith feed
broadcast from there, would it be so hard to determine where it was?

------
budley
He always knew that Wikileaks would do this kind of thing to his life but he
is totally the man fOr the job. They'll never screen this in Australia but
with the power of the internet it doesn't even matter.

------
bcrescimanno
Flagged.

Primarily because Julian Assange is little more than a publicity whore and
this latest move is just more evidence of that truth. He's little different
than the Kardashians of the world. Moreover, I just don't see how him starting
a talkshow is at all "newsworthy."

[Edit] Now that the inevitable down-voting has begun, I'll just comment that
when I flag a post, I feel it's reasonable to leave an comment as to why I
flagged it. FWIW, I could have just flagged it and let it go without taking
the negative hit.

~~~
Estragon
You're not being downvoted for flagging. It's for not meaningfully
contributing to the conversation.

~~~
bcrescimanno
In most cases, I'd agree. But when my flagging corresponds to assaulting
someone who many around these parts see as some kind of folk hero, I'm not
surprised when some downvotes come simply from people annoyed at me for
calling Assange out for being a publicity whore.

That said, my guess is any upvotes are simply people agreeing with me as well.

~~~
rbarooah
One reason for the downvotes may be that you basically just called him names,
rather than making a reasoned point.

