Post date: Apr 14, 2012 12:27:34 AM
MOSCOW, RUSSIA (APRIL 13, 2012) (REUTERS) - Russian state-run RT news channel on Friday (April 13) released a promo for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's talk show 'The World Tomorrow' which is slated to air on April 17.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to air his own talk show, broadcast by Russian state-run RT news channel.
RT broadcasts around the world via satellite and cable.
The founder and leader of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, is both the show's creator and host, and has already completed filming of the show's 12 episodes.
"I've been under house arrest for so long that it's nice to have an occasional visitor and to, you know, learn more about the world. And, given that the conversations we were having were quite interesting, why not film it and show other people what was going on," Assange said in an interview filmed by RT.
Australian-born Assange, 40, is currently under house arrest in Britain and fighting extradition to Sweden for questioning over alleged sex crimes. He said he aimed to take a different approach to interviewing than mainstream media in his talk show.
"I wanted to have a different sort of approach with people, and while that approach has been difficult in some ways, I think it has also succeeded in other ways and we've revealed sides of very interesting and important people that are not normally revealed because they're not dealing with a standard interviewer - they're dealing with someone who's under house arrest, who has gone through political problems that they can sympathise with," Assange said.
The show will be broadcast simultaneously from Moscow in all three of RT's channels - in English, Arabic and Spanish.
"A lot of the things that we have been trying to report have not been carried accurately in the mainstream press. When we look at international networks there's really only two that we're speaking about and that's RT and Al Jazeera," Assange said.
Head of RT's newsroom in Moscow, Nikolay Bogachikhin, said the first episode's guest would likely create controversy, but refused to give away any other details.
"We can definitely say that the first guest is going to be quite controversial and he is very well known and it is - we expect quite a stir with the first show," Bogachihin told Reuters.
The first episode of 'The World Tomorrow' will air on April 17 at 1130GMT, on the 500th day after Wikileaks' funding was blockaded.