WikiLeaks’ Assange threatened to sue Guardian and for Violations of Agreement other Revelations

Vanity Fair's Sarah Ellison has a comprehensive piece online detailing the relationship between WikiLeaks and The Guardian. The story gives an up-close look at how Julian Assange provided his leaked cache of classified documents on Afghanistan, Iraq, and U.S. diplomacy to the British newspaper and other news organizations last year.
The alliance between the old-media outlet and the Web-driven document clearinghouse proved rocky at times. It grew particularly strained recently after the paper turned its lens on Assange. (This was pretty much the same dynamic that upended WikiLeaks' relationship with the New York Times.)
What's more, Ellison notes, the Guardian and WikiLeaks were by no means committed to a shared agenda or pursuing common journalistic aims just because each organization wanted to make information public:
The partnership between The Guardian and WikiLeaks brought together two desperately ambitious organizations that happen to be diametric opposites in their approach to reporting the news. One of the oldest newspapers in the world, with strict and established journalistic standards, joined up by one of the newest in a breed of online muckrakers, with no standards at all except fealty to an ideal of 'transparency'—that is, dumping raw material into the public square for people to pick over as they will. It is very likely that neither [Guardian editor-in-chief] Alan Rusbridger nor Julian Assange fully understood the nature of the other's organization when they joined forces."
Ellison's account offers a great tick-tock chronology of last year's set of WikiLeaks dumps, together with several revelations regarding WikiLeaks' media strategy.
How The Guardian got involved: Reporter Nick Davies has written about his involvement with Assange before, but Ellison adds new details to the timeline. In June, Davies read a short Guardian piece on the arrest of Bradley Manning, the army private who's believed to be a principal WikiLeaks source and who's been kept in solitary confinement since his detainment. Davies was determined to track Manning down. Davies learned Assange would be in Brussels, so Brussels-based Guardian reporter Ian Traynor spoke with the WikiLeaks chief and learned he had two million documents. Davies headed to Brussels and "went to the Hotel Leopold, woke up Assange, and began a conversation that lasted for the next six hours."
How the New York Times got involved: Davies and Assange discussed bringing in the Times while in Brussels, and back in London, Rusbridger called Times executive editor Bill Keller. Times reporter Eric Schmitt flew to London to see the material, reported it was genuine, and the Times came aboard. Assange then brought in Der Spiegel on his own.
How Channel 4 got involved, and Assange split with Davies: In July, Assange provided Britain's Channel 4 network with the Afghanistan documents. Ellison writes that Davies was "livid" over the breach of Assange's presumed first-look arrangement with The Guardian and that the two haven't spoken again. (Slate's Jack Shafer has a good take on Vanity Fair piece, including the expectations reporters sometimes have for the sources they've "cultivated.")
How The Guardian got the cables from Assange: Investigative editor David Leigh agreed to a delay in publishing articles related to the Iraq documents because Assange wanted to bring in the nonprofit Bureau of Investigative Journalism to work with Channel 4 and Al Jazeera. In exchange for a six-week delay, Assange provided "package three" -- the State Dept. cables -- to the Guardian. In doing so, Assange got a letter from the Guardian agreeing not to publish anything on the leaked cables until he gave the go-ahead. But...
The Guardian got the cables from a second source: This bit of news fills in an interesting gap and explains friction between Assange and The Guardian. The British newspaper agreed to Assange's embargo on a release date for the cables, because WikiLeaks was its source. But in October, The Guardian received the full cache of cables from freelance journalist Heather Brooke. She had obtained the cables independently from an ex-WikiLeaks volunteer. (Brooke suggested on Twitter today that there's more to the story). Regardless, The Guardian now had the full database from a different source and believed it was free from the embargo agreed upon with Assange. The Guardian then provided those documents to Der Spiegel and The New York Times. These news organizations planned to published on Nov. 8--with or without Assange's input.
Why Assange threatened to sue: Assange and his lawyer met in Rusbridger's office and threatened to sue if The Guardian published anything from the cables ahead of the embargo. Ellison writes that Rusbridger, Guardian investigations editor David Leigh, and editors from Der Spiegel "spent a marathon session with Assange, his lawyer, and [WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn] Hrafnsson, eventually restoring an uneasy calm." They agreed to delay publication a few weeks while Assange brought in two more media partners, Le Monde (France) and El Pais (Spain).
So what's next? Last week, The Cutline raised some questions for WikiLeaks in 2011. In Ellison's piece, Davies notes that Assange has discussed having files on all Guantanamo Bay prisoners. (Wired zeroes in on this detail). Assange has also spoken about having documents that could take down a bank or two. But it remains to be seen exactly what Assange has and also how he may choose to work with news organizations going forward. As Ellison explains, it hasn't always been an easy relationship.
Since readers have asked me about neglecting specific revelations from the WikiLeaks docs, just a reminder: this is a media blog so the focus is on the media relationships and strategy. For more on WikiLeaks revelations, check out The Guardian, New York Times, a very good new CBS round-up or WikiLeaks itself. And for daily updates on all-things-WikiLeaks, The Nation's Greg Mitchell is a must-read.