Max Raymond

The tale of Julian Assange, which will undoubtedly be made into an Oscar-nomiated movie at some point in the next decade, continues to take another intriguing twist. It was announced this week (24th January) that the founder of Wikileaks will host a talk show on an English-language television channel controlled by the Kremlin, Russia Today.

The programme, rather grandiosely titled The World Tomorrow, will start in mid-March and feature half-an-hour long interviews with ten “key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries” according to the Russian broadcaster. A separate statement from Wikileaks says “the show is intended to draw together controversial voices from across the political spectrum – iconoclasts, visionaries and power insiders – each to offer a window on the world tomorrow.” A replacement for Oprah Winfrey, this clearly ain’t. Both organisations seem as if they’re hoping for headline-grabbing conversations.

Anything that Assange does is steeped in controversy and he’s still facing battles of his own. In 2010 his website was condemned by US authorities for releasing classified information and shortly afterwards he was arrested of sexual assault allegations in Sweden. He is currently appealing against extradition to the Scandinavian country and the UK Supreme Court will consider his appeal next month. It’s been revealed that The World Tomorrow will be filmed a week before this hearing.

The success of this is entirely dependant on who are the interviewees. Is it going to be people we’ve not heard of or well-known figures? Or a mixture of the two? No one really knows yet but if he gets the right people it could be quite fascinating. It also depends on Assange’s own skills as an interviewer and that could be a downfall since Assange isn’t necessarily someone who has bags of charisma.