Julian Assange freed | Farage goes to war with Mail
And Evening Standard's Tristan Kirk on his campaign against secret justice
Welcome to your daily newsletter from Press Gazette on Tuesday, 25 June, 2024.
Julian Assange has had to plead guilty to the crime of journalism in order to secure his freedom after more than five years in Belmarsh.
The Wikileaks founder will travel to US territory tomorrow to admit his guilt under the Espionage Act before flying home to Australia.
The plea deal is a victory for press freedom campaigners. But it also leaves in place a dangerous precedent.
Assange merely received and published information from a whistleblower, much of which was undoubtedly in the public interest.
Assange is accused of putting lives at risk with the release of US state secrets. But he also shed light on the conduct of a war which killed more than 100,000 people, including many innocent civilians (journalists among them).
His case will remain as a warning that any UK journalist dealing with US state whistleblowers could be treated like a foreign spy and handed over by their own government to face a possible life sentence in US custody.
Today we also hear from the journalistic equivalent of the boy with his finger in the dyke, Evening Standard courts correspondent Tristan Kirk. He's been fighting a one-man campaign for nearly a decade against court rules which have seen thousands of criminal cases heard in secret.
And the Mail titles are at war with Reform Party leader Nigel Farage, with the latter claiming the Mail on Sunday libelled him with its latest front-page story.
The standing of the Tories is so low in the opinion polls that even the right-leaning Mail is now being somewhat tepid in its support, admitting they were guilty of "an unforgivable betrayal of promises" in a leader column yesterday. But it has urged its readers to avoid the "nightmare" of a Tory wipeout by shunning Reform on 4 July.
New from Press Gazette
Campaigners claim victory as Julian Assange freed after five years in Belmarsh
Court papers filed by the US Justice Department show Assange is scheduled to appear in federal court to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information.
Nigel Farage goes to war with Mail titles over coverage of Ukraine comments
“The Daily Mail are colluding with the Kremlin and intending to put out Russian propaganda.”
Tristan Kirk’s fight for open justice: ‘I was only reporter covering these cases’
“There were regional reporters who got in touch with me during that time saying ‘where are you finding all these cases?’ because they didn’t know the single justice procedure had sort of swept them all up.”
News in brief
The Daily Record is the latest newspaper to declare its election endorsement, backing Labour in its first show of support for a single party since 2010. It tells readers: "This election is not about independence." (Press Gazette)
Conspiracist media brand Infowars is to be sold off amid owner Alex Jones' bankruptcy proceedings. Jones was previously ordered to pay more than a billion dollars in defamation damages to the families of children killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. (The Guardian)
The website of MTV News has been pulled from the internet along with two decades' worth of content. Sister site CMT (formerly Country Music Television) also appears to have been closed. MTV News was shuttered last year by parent company Paramount Global. (Variety)
Previously on Press Gazette
Mind the London news gap: The boroughs which have little coverage of council activities
Robert Winnett will stay at Telegraph after Washington Post move controversy
Telegraph vindicated by IPSO over ‘Whatsapp files’ Matt Hancock front page
Women’s voices and issues are not being heard in UK general election
Politicians’ claims rather than AI fakes have kept UK election fact-checkers busy
How Total Politics is making un-paywalled political journalism pay
‘Pick up the phone’ is one of 26 fixes offered to police by Crime Reporters Association
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