COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Sex, lies and Wikileaks As once friendly news outlets report the Julian Assange story more critically, we ask if the media has lost the plot.

Sex, lies and Wikileaks: Has the media lost the plot? Plus, an interview with one of Egypt's most influential voices, Yosri Fouda.

This July marked two years since the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks released the Afghan War Logs. Since then, the path for its founder Julian Assange has not been a smooth one, and it has led to an extradition battle between the UK and Ecuador.

When the war logs first came out, major newspapers like the New York Times, Der Spiegel and The Guardian collaborated with Wikileaks, but two years on those relationships have changed. Once friendly media outlets are now reporting Assange's story - the allegations of sex crimes, his extradition and now his asylum - far more critically. But is this all fair comment or is Assange part of a media witchhunt?

In this week's News Divide we ask if the media have lost the plot on the Wikileaks story.

Myanmar ... The press in Myanmar are handed a small victory in their battle against censorship;

Syria, ... a Japanese journalist is killed whilst covering the ongoing conflict there;

India ... Indian government clamps down on social networking sites after a campaign of misinformation forces thousands of people to flee the cities.

Yosri Fouda Interview ... Ever since the arrival of the Arab Spring in Egypt last February, we have been tracking the work of journalists revolutionising the Egyptian media. One man at the forefront of those changes has been Yosri Fouda. Fouda is a former reporter at Al Jazeera's Arabic news channel and now hosts an influential, late night political talk show in Cairo. We sat down with the host during his recent trip to London.

Paralympics As London bid farewell to the London 2012 Olympics, the city also welcomed the second part of the Games, the Paralympics. Beginning on August 29, this multi-sport event will feature competitors with disabilities. Britain's official broadcaster for the event is Channel 4 and to mark their involvement, they have produced a series of adverts featuring the athletes. The TV channel says it wants to show a different side to the Paralympian and judging by the response online, it has achieved what it set out to do. We have made it our Video of the Week ... enjoy!

Source: Al Jazeera