I’m not sure that Assange broke any laws: most apply to government employees and contractors (he’s never been either) and in general only to citizens and residents of that country (same); international laws are rare, and I can’t think of any related to espionage.

The press tries to redact private information that is not relevant for their stories out of compassion (and it’s universally seen as a good thing) but it’s not always clear that they have a legal duty to do so. The one case that I know is illegal _in the US_ is to reveal the name of a CIA agent, but a most other information revealed by Wikileaks falls under fairly standard First amendement rights. Assange wasn’t a whistleblower: he found an alternative way to protect whistleblowers by hiding their identity, including voluntarily ignoring it himself.

A lot of Americans are dismissive of the idea that US laws doesn't apply to non-residents, but there’s plenty of examples that will show how absurd it is. Turkey bans saying anything bad about Ataturk: if you did, would you feel like you broke the law? No, because you don’t live there. It might reduce your holiday options but I get the feeling that Assange was never the DisneyWorld kind of guy.

Assange is a competitor of the press that wrote about him.