Assange et le Guardian

Assange et le Guardian

Le site du quotidien The Australian publie le 20 janvier 2011 un article qui retrace les relations entre Julian Assange, fondateur de WikiLeaks, et le quotidien le Guardian, qui a joué un rôle essentiel dans la crise Cablegate.

L’intérêt est surtout de prendre connaissance des conditions qui ont conduit à la diffusion des fuites massives de WikiLeaks et abouti à la crise Cablegate de décembre 2010. On voit que le Guardian a joué un rôle peu connu d’initiateur, proposant à Assange les conditions de l’opération qui fut finalement lancée.

«Ian Katz, the deputy editor of The Guardian, says it has been “complicated”, with quite a few frictions and an inevitable culture clash. Julian Assange says some aspects of it have been “disgusting” and reek of betrayal. The two men are talking about one of the most important media developments of recent years, the relationship between Britain's left-leaning Guardian newspaper and Assange's whistleblowing WikiLeaks website.

»It was The Guardian that convinced Assange to join forces in an old media-new media collaboration to publish its enormous caches of leaked US government cables, and even though the partnership grew to include The New York Times and three other European publications - Der Spiegel, El Pais and Le Monde - the British newspaper has remained its driving force.

»The Guardian has published more WikiLeaks stories (700-plus) and devoted more resources (up to 40 reporters) to the project than anyone else, and it is The Guardian that has suffered the nastiest falling out with WikiLeaks. The newspaper and website are still working together on what Assange promises will be a new wave of disclosures about the US cables but the relationship has clearly cooled after some disputes.

»The partnership between one of old media's grandest names and the world's leading “information libertarian” website is important, not just because it was the first such collaboration but because new versions of WikiLeaks are springing up and it is not yet clear whether the old and new media models will co-operate or compete, and strengthen or undermine each other.

»Nick Davies, the Guardian journalist who first approached Assange in June last year with the idea of co-operating on the editing and publication of the cables, has reportedly not spoken to Assange for months because of what he sees as the Australian's double-dealing, including his decision last year to give some cables to rival organisation Channel 4…»

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