Like you (I hope/assume) I believe in Free Speech and Freedom of the Press. I do think folks sometimes carry those principles to self-serving, ridiculous extremes — like claiming they're being censored if their TV show gets canceled — but the principles themselves are important. I also think that defense of Free Speech is kinda meaningless except when you defend the right of others to say things that you, yourself do not like.
It would not be courageous of me to defend the right of someone to praise Barack Obama. I would be placing principle over self-interest if I defended the right of someone to say Donald Trump was a great man. I'll have to do that one of these days.
Anyway, this brings us to Julian Assange, who has now been indicted not so much for stealing secret documents but for sharing them with the world. A prosecution of him could put in place a new order of punishing or at least intimidating journalists who do much better, fairer leaking than he does. As little as I like the way Assange selectively and manipulatively leaks, the stifling of real journalists would do much more damage. Fred Kaplan explains in more detail why this is.