On the latest program, we celebrate Daniel Ellsberg Week (April 24-30), co-sponsored by The Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy & and RootsAction Education Fund, as we honor whistleblowers in support of a truly free press from Dan Ellsberg to Julian Assange. First, Mickey talks with journalist Kevin Gosztola, author of Guilty of Journalism. Kevin gives important updates on the Assange case as the WikiLeaks founder languishes in a Belmarsh prison awaiting potential extradition to the US to be tried under the Espionage Act. Then, in the second segment, we share more from a very special conversation between Kevin Gosztola and famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg spoke with Kevin last month on the occasion of the release of Kevin’s book Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange. In part two of this interview, Ellsberg shares information about his historical relations with the press, as well as his pessimistic view of today’s US press. We share it in honor of Daniel Ellsberg Week.
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Kevin Gosztola is the managing editor of Shadowproof, and also writes at The Dissenter. He has covered the Julian Assange legal proceedings in the UK from their beginning, as well as other press-freedom and whistleblower cases. His new book on the Assange case, Guilty of Journalism is now available in bookstores. Daniel Ellsberg is best known for leaking classified Pentagon documents in 1971, which revealed covert operations against North Vietnam, as well as secret assessments that the war could not be won, and executive-branch lies to Congress and the US public. In the decades since then, Ellsberg has remained an antiwar activist, and an ally of whistleblowers. The news of his recent diagnosis of an inoperable cancer has prompted press-freedom advocates to declare a week of appreciation for Ellsberg, to begin Monday April 24.