You've been waiting and we've been teasing. Julian Assange. The World Tomorrow. Arguably the most anticipated news show of 2012 premieres next week on RT.
Dateline – Tuesday, April 17. Timeline – 15:30 Moscow time, 11:30 GMT, 07:30 am in New York and 21:30 in Sydney. The world will be watching "The World Tomorrow". In the spirit of WikiLeaks we'll be publishing exclusive trailers, sneakpeaks, previews and behind-the-scenes content to bring you Assange's show in-full on "The World Tomorrow" official video-page. The announcement that RT would host Assange's show created a global media stir, with many questioning the RT/Assange link-up. In a pre-show interview (details TBA) Assange explained his rationale. "A lot of the things that we have been trying to report have not been carried accurately in the mainstream press. There are many, many fine exceptions but when we look at international networks there’s really only two that are worth speaking about, and that’s RT and Al Jazeera." RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan sees no coincidence in the connection. "RT is rallying a global audience of open minded people who question what they see in mainstream media and we are proud to premiere Julian Assange's new project. We provided Julian a platform to reach the world and gave him total editorial freedom. He is absolutely the right person to bring alternative opinions to our viewers around the globe." The 10-episode series features Assange in conversation with "iconoclasts, visionaries and power insiders". But what brought Assange, under house arrest for 492 days without charge, to the RT screen? "First of all, being under house arrest for so long, it’s nice to have an occasional visitor and to learn more about the world. And given that the conversations we were having are quite interesting, why not film them and show other people what was going on." Incredibly, his detention became an ace card in his TV journalism debut as the show "revealed sides of very interesting and important people that are not normally [sic] because they are not dealing with a standard interviewer, they are dealing with someone who is under house arrest, who has gone through political problems that they can sympathize with." The first-episode, with a notorious guest who's identity is still under wraps, will coincide with the 500th day of financial blockade on Wikileaks. The countdown for "The World Tomorrow" begins today.