Julian Assange, the co-founder of WikiLeaks, has agreed to plead guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act for his role in collecting and publishing top-secret military and diplomatic documents from 2009 to 2011. What does this verdict mean for media freedom around the world?

While it’s certainly positive news that the US Department of Justice is apparently closing the book on the tragic Assange saga, it’s shocking that the administration of President Joe Biden demanded a guilty plea for the alleged crime of obtaining and publishing government secrets. After all, this is the crucial task that investigative journalists perform on a regular basis.

“The plea deal won’t have the precedential effect of a court ruling, but it will still hang over the heads of national security reporters for years to come… It’s purely symbolic,” Seth Stern, the director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), said in a statement. “The administration could’ve easily just dropped the case but chose to instead legitimize the criminalization of routine journalistic conduct and encourage future........

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