voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. hello and welcome. on this week's media show, as the wikileaks founder julian assange walked free, we ask what lessons journalism can learn from his case and his career. and i was also joined by a tv icon — the scriptwriter and executive producer of global hits including sherlock and doctor who, as he launches a new tv series about cancel culture. that's all coming up. let's start with the julian assange story, because the founder of wikileaks has walked free from a us court after pleading guilty in a deal that ends a iii—year legal battle. he's now back in australia.

he was pursued by us prosecutors for leaking vast amounts of classified government and military documents, including those related to the afghanistan and iraq wars. in a press conference after his release, his lawyer called the prosecution "the criminalisation of journalism". so, did he pioneer a new form ofjournalism by setting up wikileaks, and has his case, by pleading guilty, set a dangerous precedent for reporters? i started by talking to carrie decell, who is a senior staff attorney at the knight first amendment institute at columbia university. i think this plea deal is significant in two respects. i mean, in the first instance, it must be an enormous relief, of course, forjulian assange and his family and his supporters around the world, as well as for press freedom advocates here in the united states who have been quite concerned about a judicial ruling that

would endorse the us government's interpretation of the espionage act and its consistency with the first amendment. first amendment being the right to free speech, just to remind everybody. yes, that's exactly right. freedom of speech, freedom of the press and a handful of other freedoms as well. but those are the ones at issue here. on the other hand, this plea deal really does cast a long shadow over press freedom in the united states. it's not a formal precedent in the sense that a judicial ruling would have been, but it does, i think, set a practical precedent for the possibility of future prosecutions ofjournalists who engage in very similar activities to the activities thatjulian assange has pleaded guilty to. and by that, i'm referring to the solicitation of information from sources, the actual receipt of that information and then the publication of that information. and here we're talking about what's called national defence information, classified information, but that's information that national security reporters solicit and publish

on a regular basis. ok, but the us government contention was that he actually went further than a journalist would, because, for example, wikileaks didn't always redact sensitive information and he was accused of potentially putting people at risk. what's your take on that? that is what the us government has said. and i think the question of whether or not a traditional journalist would have published the same information is somewhat irrelevant to the charges that were ultimately brought againstjulian assange. under the espionage act, the us government is under no obligation to show that the publication of this kind of information resulted in any harm whatsoever to us national interests. so while i wouldn't necessarily defend every editorial choice thatjulian assange made, nor do i think other outlets would have made the same choices, although many outlets did publish many of the leaked documents thatjulian assange and wikilea ks published.

yeah, because that's what's interesting, isn't it? other people, you know, other outlets, whether it's the guardian here in the uk, the new york times, der spiegel in germany and many others, you know, they did, as you say, publish wikileaks documents and data and information. why didn't the us government prosecute the journalists who'd worked withjulian assange? why did theyjust go for him, do you think? that's a great question. i think they were relying on this distinction that they tried to put forward between julian assange and a traditionaljournalist, but as i mentioned... so they say that he's a publisher, right? they don't see him as a journalist, is that right? they don't see him as a journalist. but that's really just some kind of atmospheric protection for the outlets that you just named who published much of the same information. there's no legal distinction between the acts that they engaged in — the publication of information on their websites and in their newspapers — and... i suppose they took some care to redact, didn't they, is what they would say? yes. i'm sorry, not to suggest that they published all of the same information that julian assange and wikileaks

published, but the charges that were brought against julian assange could have been just as well brought against all of those news outlets. and do you think the fact that he's pleaded guilty, will that have a chilling effect on journalists working in the future? imean, could...? i think you said the us government couldn't use it as a precedent. but how do you view what it means forjournalism and journalists in the future? i think it certainly does have a chilling effect. the filing of this indictment at the outset, i think, has had a chilling effect on national securityjournalism here in the united states and perhaps around the world as well, because it's shown that the us government was no longer hewing to a line that the obama administration had drawn between using the espionage act to prosecute sources of leaked information and the publishers of that information. and the obama administration kind of famously concluded that there would be a huge, what it called a new york times problem, if it pursued these charges againstjulian assange at that time. the trump administration crossed that line, and the biden administration hasn't walked back from it. it has maintained this prosecution. and while i think many of us

are relieved to see that this is a guilty plea rather than a judicial ruling convicting julian assange under the espionage act, it nonetheless has established the possibility that journalists and others would be subject to the same kinds of charges going forward. 0k. well, carrie decell, thank you so much for giving us that legal perspective. i want to turn to james ball from the new european. james, you worked with julian assange at wikileaks for three months back in 2010. just take us back to that time. i mean, what was he like to work with? so, i don't think i'd be breaking confidences to say julian is a difficult man to work with, but it was an incredibly energised and energetic time. julian used to like to sort of make wikileaks look as if it was thousands of people and was really strong

and was huge, and it was about six or seven people and a few volunteers working out of vaughan smith's front room. vaughan smith is the owner of ellingham hall, a sort of beautiful country house in norfolk. and he told his sort of housekeeper that we were a very sort of unruly tech start up. and so we're sitting on this terrible internet connection, trying to sort of publish these documents that shed unprecedented light on what happened in afghanistan, iraq, and then, of course, the state department cables. yeah, because i was going to say, just to remind people, at that time, and around the time you were working there, that was when wikileaks and julian assange had released footage, for example, of a us helicopter crew gunning down unarmed iraqis on a baghdad street. that was in 2010, when it was released. that really did feel like public interest revelations. did it feel like you were doing journalism or activism or what? i mean, i had come there

as a trained journalist. my background was that i very much viewed it as a journalistic assignment. we were partnering with channel 4, with dispatches. we were partnering with aljazeera, we were with the guardian, the new york times, and we were sitting in meetings making the same decisions. and there was quite an odd feeling in wikileaks where we were the exposed face. i was about 24 and i had more experience than most people there, and the papers kind of had us sitting in front of them and the criticism. it was assange who got the criticism from hillary clinton, from all the rest. we did feel a bit like a sort of shield being used to help the papers with it. but you were getting this incredible data dump. yes. and it should be said, there were some real horrors revealed in that. if anyone listening or watching hasn't looked at the collateral murder video, as this helicopter footage was known, it's deeply shocking. two reutersjournalists are shot, but someone's driving past, and i happened to know you had two young children in the car, sees people shot on the ground and stops to help

them, as any, like, hu...you know, what a courageous thing to do. and that's grounds enough for him to be shot from the air in front of his children, who, mercifully, survived. so it was really important... but it's utterly there. the iraq war logs detailed 109,000 deaths. you know, this is very grave, serious stuff. and did julian assange consider... ? and it should be said, the dod, when they prosecuted chelsea manning, who was the source for this, never actually decided to present evidence saying that the careless redactions, which i condemned and which others condemned, they said they put people at risk, and i believed that. they never actually suggested anyone had actually come to harm, let alone been killed. dod being the department of defence. yes. and these documents that revealed thousands of real deaths. and can ijust ask? you were clearly a journalist. did julian assange view himself as a journalist or an activist, or how did you read that? i think at different moments, assange would frame himself as what fitted best at the time, either for his image or his convenience. he was a journalist

when he thought that would give him protections. he was an activist at other times. he sort of sometimes would talk about transparency as the goal, but he would also say, actually, it was about countering an imperialist project. and so... and transparency was a more convenient way to do that. but i don't think whether assange is a journalist or not is central to whether the prosecution against him threatened journalism. well, just stay with us, james. but i want to talk more about the wikileaks model and bring in katie mark, who's the deputy editor at the bureau of investigative journalism. and, katie, thank you for coming on the programme. i want to ask you the same question i asked james. do you considerjulian assange a journalist or an activist? yeah. thank you for having me on. so i would say he was more of a political activist - than a journalist. i think when you're dealing - with, you know, james hasjust said, he had a sort- of motivation to bring down this imperial or, organise, - you know, counter this imperial message.

you cannot really havej that kind of motivation going intojournalism. and the other...the other thing i think would be quite - important is that you have editorial rules, you have l frameworks which you work within when you're - a journalist. so, like you mentioned, - you know, if we are going to be publishing things, we will think about privacy, - we'll think about redacting names, we will think- about legal, what legal content we have and if we're holding i content that is illegal. so i think... like, you would... i don't thinkjournalists| would have a wholesale publication of leaks- without going through very, veryspecmc— frameworks, you know? like, if you are a ethical journalist, i would say. i and if you look back, though, at that time, did you... ..do you think that what he was trying to do with wikileaks, did that change journalism as you see it? i think wikileaks was one i of the first times we had this massive amount, this data dump in that kind of... -

..on that kind of scale. so, of course, we've had leaks. and we've had whistle—blowers, but that scale was beyond anything we had seen. - it was just the...just . the cablegate that you mentioned earlier, - was 400,000 documents that we were dealing with. sojournalists now had to adapt to dealing... i how do you deal with huge amounts of data dumps . or document dumps? so newsrooms had to change how you kind of look at that. - and we had to put in frameworks to be able to go through that. i yeah, it's interesting when you think back, isn't it? because, you know, we kind of take those kind of data dumps for granted these days, things that reporters will collaborate on, work with the people involved. but actually, back then, that wasn't the case. well, you know, now, you know, we had the panama papers, - we have cyprus confidential, we had snowden. _ back then, we just didn't. so you would have a _ whistle—blower that would come to you, who might have some files, but not millions. - for example, one of- the projects we're working

on here at the bureau - is cyprus confidential files, which is kind of this massive, exposing financial frameworkj of, like, russia, putin's money flow, right? - and that is 3.6 million files that we are going through. | so we are in consortium. with 68 other newsrooms because it's just impossible. and we could just look on that and do that for the rest - of our lives. i was going to say, how long have you got? it's going to take you a while, right? that's true. so, yeah. so we had to, you know, i you have to work together, you have to collaborate - and you have to see if there's anything even of interest in these data dumps. - you know, public...is this| public interest is the main thing we're looking for. and that is, ithink, _ maybe what also differentiates the journalism i and the activism. absolutely. and, james ball, would you agree that this was something that wikileaks and julian assange pioneered? it absolutely was. it's not the legacy julian assange would want, but he has revolutionised mainstream newsrooms. it not only skilled up newsrooms to realising they needed people who could code, who could do data, it taught newsrooms collaboration. the guardian and the new york times would never have worked together before wikileaks

and have collaborated time and again since for things like snowden. and i worked on the snowden documents. we really worked to actually publish enough of the documents to prove what we were saying, and there wasn't that culture before. we wouldn't... we would ask the audience to trust us. we wouldn't show them it. we started working with open—source investigators, people like bellingcat, who helped track that russia was behind mh17. and so ourjournalism is more accountable. it uses more modern techniques, we collaborate. didn'tjulian assange talk about scientific journalism? did you understand that's where sort of readers get to see the data behind the story and decide for themselves? i think he actually moved off that model and he moved off... i mean, wikileaks was named for wikipedia, although the two were never related. jimmy wales gets very cross if you suggest they were! but he initially thought, if you just publish the documents, everyone would go in and find the stories. and people don't do that.

it takes training, it takes skill, it takes money. but he did have this idea that you should show your working. and i think to an extent that has stayed. you know, we looked through... i mean, the snowden documents were top secret. they were much more sensitive even than what chelsea manning released. and i've probably personally read about 8,000, 9,000 of them. the guardian published, over the course of two years, about 60 with heavy redactions. and that was because they were the relevant ones to the story. we might have had to read 50 to understand something, but what shows you the core of it, what demonstrates it without us unnecessarily risking security? and these are incredibly hard decisions. and other people think we should have published more, others very much thought we should publish less. but even when we were doing snowden, with the guardian's backing behind us, the legal briefings on the espionage act were terrifying. and we were told, essentially, what you are...what

is protecting you is the us government not choosing to pursue you, because if they pursue you, they will almost certainly get the conviction. as has been proven. and that's why the use against assange is so scary. and people will remember, he was in the ecuadorian embassy for years, and then in a british prison. and throughout that time, obviously, he's had very vocal supporters. but is it fair to say that it's only relatively recently that mainstream journalists have been campaigning for him? because for a long time it felt that, you know, perhaps because of those sex offence allegations he faced in sweden and which he denied, that he was ignored. i think...| think it's genuinely a tragedy for the two women in sweden that they will never get their day in court. assange ran the clock out on that with his time in the embassy, and it's now past statute of limitation. that's an injustice. whatever the verdict may have been to, that's an injustice. but what happens here is, in my view, a second injustice. you know, this was a bad prosecution against assange that is a threat to journalists across the world.

assange isn't america. he didn't do this work in america. he's an australian citizen who did it in britain and has had to plead guilty despite having the best legal counsel you could have, much better resources than almost anyone and more international fame and support than anyone would have. that's a chilling effect, and that's dangerous. and so, when it comes to support for him, i think assange and his supporters would say the mainstream wasn't there. i know that, ever since 2019, i have written that this was a bad prosecution, whatever you think of assange. i know alan rusbridger, who's the guardian editor, has. bill keller, who was the new york times editor, has. what they want is full—throated support of assange as a hero, but that's not going to win over anyone who doesn't...isn't already on his side. and there are a lot of people on his side. i mean, i remember back in 2012, i think it was, outside the ecuadorian embassy, covering the story for channel 11 news and a whole

host of people as he came out to do his balcony scene and talked about, you know, the fact that america mustn't pursue journalists for shining a light on the powerful. he clearly saw himself as a journalist back then. what do you think�*s next for him now he's free? who's going to get the first interview, i suppose? because he actually didn't speak today. everyone thought he would and then it was his lawyer and his wife who spoke instead. so, i'm... i think it will be interesting to see what kind of assange emerges. i don't think he's about to go for the quiet life. he's quite a formidable person. but people who are still close to him have said it's taken a real toll on his health and he's not the same man he was. you know, his seven years in the embassy were quite confined. he could never get out. some people say that he chose to go there, the consequences are his. but five years in belmarsh is very real, so he mayjust want some time away. but i think he'll probably try

and be a public figure again. he tried to run wikileaks out of the ecuadorian embassy with some quite chaotic results. it included publishing actual hacking tools used by the cia, now, anyone leaking to someone that visible is taking a big risk, and every agency knows who he is and where he is. but i don't think that would stop him trying. i mean, julian assange is a man who believes in himself and so he could easily be back. 0k, thejulian assange story is definitely not over, but it is for us right now. james ball, thank you. katie and carrie, also thank you very much for coming on the programme. but for the rest of our time today we're going to talk about tv drama with one of the best known writers in the business, also an executive producer, steven moffat. you'll have seen his name on the credits of many shows, doctor who, sherlock amongst them. and soon a new drama series called douglas is cancelled. it's about a leading news anchor in trouble after allegations start to go viral that he told an inappropriate joke at a wedding. here is the hugh bonneville character trying to get his

story straight with his editor. i was a little drunk. not in my opinion. i'm 5 o rry? i disagree about you being drunk. you weren't there! we're journalists, we're never there. having opinions about things we didn't witness is the entire point of our existence. we are the brave few who turn up after the event and explain it to everyone else who missed it. that was ben miles as the editor ending that clip there. welcome, steven moffat, to the show. thank you. delighted that you're here. um, tell me why you want to make that show now. well, you know, i kind of wanted to make it about seven years ago is the truth, because that's when i wrote the play, uh, on which i based this. i wrote a play about seven years ago, just when i left doctor who and sherlock and felt absolutely confident that theatre wanted nothing more than me. turned out not to be true. do you know... outrageous! i know, i thought stadiums would fill with cheering, grateful people, but literally most of the theatres didn't even write back. so i realised that having lost control of the tardis,

i now mattered not at all. and even for you, it took seven years... even for me? especially for me. getting television made is hard? or you just put it to one side for a bit? i put it to one side for a bit, and really it was down to, uh, well, my wife, sue vertue, the producer, who always liked it and kept saying, "look, it's not getting less relevant, is it? " and, of course, my old friend karen gillan from doctor who, who had become by some strange mischance an international movie star. perfect. and she kept saying, she asked to read it, which never happens to writers, does it? they, no—one ever asks to read the whatever... because, just to say, she plays the co—anchor. yes. hugh bonneville�*s sidekick. or not sidekick. equal. yes. side equal. exactly. um, yeah. she plays the one who always gets called co—anchor. yes. we've all been there. yeah. yeah, indeed. i think i remember sitting in the corner at channel [i news, um, in the sort of co—presenting... the co—presenting. then they brought it up. they made it more equal after that. i know one reviewer said it's a positive sign it's been

commissioned, as executives would have been scared to take the idea of cancel culture on earlier. do you agree with that in any way? i don't know if i agree with that, because we didn't really experiment with it. it was actually relatively recently, i was working on something else at the time. ijust thought, well, karen loves it and my wife loves it. uh, why don't i turn it into the one thing i know how to write, which is a tv show? that was relatively recent and it only went, it went to... i think the beeb turned it down, but not for that reason. and then itv, uh, went for it. so it wasn't a long process. television, quite often, television drama quite often marches into any kind of controversy, because controversy means you get to come on this show and talk about it. oh, exactly. and that's top of everyone�*s list. absolutely. well, let's go back to the beginning of your career, because lots of people will know you because of doctor who. in 2008, you took over from russell t davies as lead writer and executive producer of doctor who. i think you've written more episodes than anyone. i always quite like to get sort of behind the scenes of how these things work. you were the writer, lead writer and also

the executive producer. what does that mean? how are you dividing it? i get what you do if you're writing it, but what are you doing as the exec producer? you're the executive producer, who is really the head writer. i mean, you're not booking camera crews. you're not doing that. uh, you are the one who... that's the co—producer. the female co—producer doing that one. fortunately, in my case, those people were given proper executive producer credits. all of them. good. and they were... i always said the real executive producers, the showrunner is the, uh, casual term for it, and that means you're in creative control over it. so you are writing scripts. you're also editing other people's scripts. you're sometimes rewriting other people's scripts. you're deciding on the creative direction of the show. and that show has gone from strength to strength. it's now a co—production with disney. yes. what impact has the injection of cash...? we had jane tranter on a while ago on the media show, who's one of the execs behind it, but what, that injection of cash made a big difference in terms of what you see on screen? whateverjane said was right.

i'm not going to disagree with jane. uh, yes. i mean, you get more money. i mean, i think the amount of money doctor who is always made on is not quite enough. but, yeah, you get more money. and the truth is, every other, every other show or movie or, uh, or whatever in that genre is scooting away into the distance. i remember when i started on it, game of thrones was just coming out, and at the time, at the beginning of game of thrones, i was thinking, "yeah, we're shooting "in the same section of marshland." we're roughly equivalent, they're a bit ahead. by the end, a few years later, they had these amazing battles and endless dragons and i thought, "oh, god, we've really fallen behind," because we do not have that money. so, yes, you have to find places to get your money to make that show so that the kids aren't thinking, "well, this is the cheap one, isn't it?" and looking at, i mean, have the streamers changed the way you work? i get it's different if you've got an injection of cash from them. but is there any other responses...? well, you know, you have to

ignore notes from more people. no, that's a terrible thing to say. i'm sorry. everyone who gives me notes, you know, it's true. um, no. it's fine. actually, ifound all the streamers i've dealt with to be really pleasant and reasonable people. uh, frequently, some of them from a bbc background. so it's not... it's fine. they have... they are very, very good, the streamers, explaining to you what works on, in their environment, what kind of show they need. and i think they have introduced us to a new form of television, which is binge—watching. and i don't think that's going to go anywhere. i think it's good. ithink, uh... i think people are voting with their feet and just binge—watching a show all at once. steven moffat, that is all we've got time for. just time to say that douglas is cancelled, your programme, is starting on itv1 here in the uk and on itv x, but where else? for people watching around the world, where else can they see it? sky showtime, you can see it. and uh, and streaming services in europe. fantastic. well, we'll look forward

to seeing it, wherever you get your...not podcasts, wherever you get your brilliant dramas. yeah. thank you very much, steven. thanks forjoining me on this week's media show. next week, ros atkins will be back, but for now, goodbye. and if you'd like to hear a longer version of today's show, search bbc the media show wherever you get your bbc podcasts. hello there. not much change to the weather as we move into tuesday. in fact, the upcoming week will remain pretty unsettled, i think, with low pressure always nearby. it will be breezy, even turning windier across northern areas by the end of the week. some rain at times, mainly in the north and the west, and it will remain on the cool side for earlyjuly. this ridge of high pressure, though, bringing quite a bit of dry weather, i think, on tuesday. we'll start off with quite a bit of sunshine around in northern, central and western areas. more cloud for eastern england, a few spots of rain — that rain will tend to ease down. and then as we head into the afternoon, skies

will turn cloudy again as the temperatures rise a little bit, and we'll see some patchy rain pushing into western scotland, mainly through the afternoon. again, disappointing temperatures, 13 to maybe 19 or 20 degrees across the south. so i think it should stay mostly dry for wimbledon on tuesday — temperatures around 20 degrees — but with low pressure moving in on wednesday, i think there's a greater chance of seeing some disruption to play with temperatures also at around 18 degrees. so as you move out of tuesday into tuesday night, we start to see this low pressure system moving in, bringing thicker cloud, outbreaks of rain, and stronger winds. i think the far southeast will stay dry until we reach the morning period, but because of the cloud, the rain, and south—westerly winds, i think it'll be a slightly milder night for all. so wednesday, we have this area of low pressure and its weather front crossing the country. it'll be a breezy day for most and a cloudy one. i think cloudy from the word go, outbreaks of rain

splashing their way from west to east. i think it stays quite wet across northern and western scotland through the day. we could see something a little bit drier, perhaps, into the afternoon across eastern areas, maybe skies brightening up out west, certainly for northern ireland, but a breezy, even blustery day to come for all areas — these are mean wind speeds. temperatures disappointing for earlyjuly at 12 to 17 or 18 degrees across the south. so that's wednesday out. as we move through thursday, this area of low pressure will bring even stronger northwesterly winds to the country, most of the rain across the north. and then for friday into the start of the weekend, could see another area of low pressure hurtling across the uk to bring another spell of wet and windy weather. so yes, an unsettled outlook for the end of the week. most of the rain in the north and the west. there will be a little bit of sunshine at times in the south and the east.

live from washington. this is bbc news. president biden calls monday's us supreme court ruling that gives presidents broad immunity a dangerous precedent. no—one is above the law. not even the president of the united states. today's supreme court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. american becomes a record—breaking category five storm as it moves through the caribbean. centrist and left—wing parties in france work together to try and block the far right in the second round of parliamentary elections. hello, i'm carl nasman. by by and addressed the country a short time ago after the

supreme court granted