World Tomorrow, or The Julian Assange Show, is a 2012 television program series of 26-minute political interviews hosted by WikiLeaks founder and editor Julian Assange and funded by RT, the Kremlin-controlled media outlet.[1] [2] Twelve episodes were shot prior to the program's premiere.[3][4] It first aired on 17 April 2012, the 500th day of the "financial blockade" of WikiLeaks, on RT, and last aired on 3 July 2012.[5]

World Tomorrow
"World Tomorrow" English-language title card framegrab
Also known asعالم الغد,
El Mundo del Mañana,
The Julian Assange Show
GenrePolitical talk show
Created byJulian Assange
Presented byJulian Assange
Theme music composerM.I.A.
Original languagesEnglish
Arabic
Russian
Spanish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes12
Production
Production locationEllingham Hall, Norfolk
Camera setupMulti-camera
Running time26 minutes
Production companiesQuick Roll Productions
Dartmouth Films
Original release
NetworkRT
Release17 April (2012-04-17T0Z) –
3 July 2012 (2012-07-03T0Z)

List of episodes

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#[o 1] Episode title Originally aired Guest(s) Ref.
1 Nasrallah 17 April 2012 Hassan Nasrallah [6]
2 Horowitz-Zizek 24 April 2012 Slavoj Žižek
David Horowitz
[7]
3 Marzouki 1 May 2012 Moncef Marzouki [8]
4 Alaa-Nabeel 8 May 2012 Alaa Abd El-Fattah
Nabeel Rajab
[9]
5 Cageprisoners 15 May 2012 Moazzam Begg
Asim Qureshi
[10]
6 Correa 22 May 2012 Rafael Correa [11]
7 Occupy 29 May 2012 David Graeber
Marisa Holmes
Alexa O'Brien
Aaron Peters
Naomi Colvin
[12]
8 Cypherpunks 1 5 June 2012 Andy Müller-Maguhn
Jérémie Zimmermann
Jacob Appelbaum
[13]
9 Cypherpunks 2 12 June 2012 Andy Müller-Maguhn
Jérémie Zimmermann
Jacob Appelbaum
[14]
10 Khan 19 June 2012 Imran Khan [15]
11 Chomsky-Ali 26 June 2012 Noam Chomsky
Tariq Ali
[16]
12 Anwar 3 July 2012 Anwar Ibrahim [17]
  1. ^ Original weekly transmission order on RT. "Cypherpunks" was transmitted in slots 8/9. The later transmission slots numbered 10–12 are alternatively referenced as episodes 9–11 in some locations.

Production

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The show is produced by Quick Roll Productions, which was established by Julian Assange with the assistance of Dartmouth Films. It is distributed by Journeyman Pictures[18] and broadcast internationally in English, Arabic, and Spanish by RT and Italian newspaper L'espresso, who both make the program available online.[1][19][20] The theme for the show was composed by M.I.A.[3][4]

Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT, told the daily Moskovskii Komsomolets that Assange will resume making shows and allowing them to be broadcast on Russian television once his legal troubles are over.[21]

Reception

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In his The New York Times blog, Robert Mackey called RT "a strange partner" for Assange[22] while Robert Colvile inveighed Assange's show by writing, "After Wikileaks – and its mission to change the world – collapsed under the weight of its leader’s ego, Assange started hosting a TV show sponsored by that noted friend of freedom, Vladimir Putin."[23] In an article for The Guardian, Luke Harding described the show as proof that Assange was a "useful idiot".[24] Another article in The Guardian by Miriam Elder said that it was doubtful Russian "revolutionaries" will make the show's guestlist and reported a tweet by Alexander Lebedev lambasting Assange, tweeting that it was, "Hard to imagine [a] more miserable final[e] for [a] 'world order challenger' than employee of state-controlled 'Russia Today'."[25] New York magazine called the show a letdown and said " it wasn’t even interesting" and that "the most charged few seconds of the broadcast" was the theme song.[26]

Glenn Greenwald of Salon magazine praised the show and condemned the detractors writing for The New York Times and The Guardian.[27] At the end of the season, Tracy Quan wrote an article called "I Love the Julian Assange Show!", describing the show as "addictive, lively, wide-ranging, and informative".[28]

References

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  1. ^ a b Aslamshoyeva, Zarifmo (14 April 2012). "WikiLeaks' Assange to launch TV talk show". CNN. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
  2. ^ Astrasheuskaya, Nastassia (26 January 2012). "WikiLeaks founder to host Kremlin-funded TV show". Moscow: Reuters.
  3. ^ a b "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's new MIA-featuring TV series to air from tomorrow (April 17)". New Musical Express. 16 April 2012. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
  4. ^ a b Buchanan, Scott; Ellis, Scott (17 April 2012). "Aussies turning heads in London". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
  5. ^ Stanger, Allison (24 September 2019). Whistleblowers. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-18688-8.
  6. ^ "Episode 1". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  7. ^ "Episode 2". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  8. ^ "Episode 3". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  9. ^ "Episode 4". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
  10. ^ "Episode 5: Cageprisoners". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 19 May 2012.
  11. ^ "Episode 6: Correa". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
  12. ^ "Episode 7: Occupy". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
  13. ^ "Episode 8". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 7 June 2012.
  14. ^ "Episode 9". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 11 June 2012.
  15. ^ "Episode 10". WikiLeaks.
  16. ^ "Episode 11". WikiLeaks.
  17. ^ "Episode 12". WikiLeaks.
  18. ^ "The World Tomorrow - Complete Series". Journeyman Pictures.
  19. ^ "The World Tomorrow: About". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
  20. ^ Halliday, Josh (13 April 2012). "Julian Assange's TV chatshow to air on 17 April". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
  21. ^ [1] [dead link]
  22. ^ Nytimes.com, 13 April 2012
  23. ^ Colvile, Robert (20 June 2012). "The downfall of a moralising moron is truly a thing of beauty". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  24. ^ Harding, Luke (17 April 2012). "The World Tomorrow: Julian Assange proves a useful idiot". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  25. ^ Elder, Miriam (25 January 2012). "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's TV show to be aired on Russian channel". The Guardian.
  26. ^ Coscarelli, Joe (17 April 2012). "Julian Assange's Talk Show Is Yet Another WikiLeaks Letdown". Intelligencer. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
  27. ^ Salon.com, 18 April 2012
  28. ^ Tracy Quan (3 July 2012). "I Love the Julian Assange Show!". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 20 August 2012.
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