(Credit: WikiLeaks, screenshot)

Journalist Steve Outing blogged Jan. 1 noting that despite heavy criticism, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange has won several awards from news organizations for his work.  Romanian news site Cotidianul.ro announced it awarded Assange the “Free Dacia award,” according to CBS News. Assange has also been awarded in the past “the Economist Index of Censorship Award (2008) and the Amnesty International UK Media Awards (2009),” Outing noted.

Le Monde, which had an advance look at the diplomatic cables before WikiLeaks started publishing them in November, also “named Assange its ‘Person of the Year.'”