Last night in Australia--that would be Sunday night--I had the honor to attend the annual Walkley Awards. It's THE awards for Australian journalists, and hundreds of journalists and supporters of the free press fly in from all over the country. The big news that rocked the hall at the Brisbane Convention Center was this: The Walkey Board of Directors and the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (the umbrella for the media unions here) showed a massive amount of spine and gave Wikileaks one of the biggest honors of the community.
The award is called Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism. Here is one news report:
Assange, whose pre-recorded acceptance speech was played at the award ceremony held at Brisbane and later broadcast on SBS ONE, blasted the US and Australian governments for their ongoing “war against the truth”.
In the six-minute-plus speech he was particularly scathing towards Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
“The Gillard government has shown its true colours in relation to how it’s handled US pressure on WikiLeaks,” he said.
“Australian journalists are courageous, the Australian population is supportive, but Julia Gillard is a cowardly Australian Prime Minister.
“As Australians we shall not despair, as long as we can speak out, as long as we can publish, and as long as the Internet remains free, we will continue to fight back, armed with the truth.”
Assange said the work of WikiLeaks had resulted in powerful enemies, but also revealed good friends.
“It has bought out the best in people – courage, loyalty, compassion and strength,” he said.
Look, the folks who gave this award should be applauded for backing up the idea of Wikileaks--particularly a time of some controversy surrounding Julian Assange. The issue is not Assange but the rights of the people to have access to information about what the heck governments and corporations are doing.
So, let's send messages of thanks and support to Walkley.