Killing the Russian Media
NYT editorial
Journalists from around the world who will gather in Moscow next week are poised to stand up for their colleagues in a country where journalism and journalists are increasingly under attack. The 1,000 media representatives plan to establish a commission to finally investigate the growing number of unsolved murders of journalists in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Russia is now the third deadliest country for journalists, after Iraq and Algeria, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Since the year 2000, when President Putin was first elected, at least 14 journalists have been murdered because of their work. None of these murders have been solved.
A journalists’ commission is no substitute for what Mr. Putin’s government has denied — justice. But it should draw attention to their murders and what they were investigating. It also may help focus attention on the methodical destruction of the fledgling free press that sprouted in Russia after the fall of Communism.
After Mr. Putin took over, national television stations were the first to lose their independence. Major newspapers are increasingly controlled by those who do the state’s bidding. The radio correspondents for the Russian News Service, the main source of news for radio stations, resigned earlier this month to protest censorship by new owners. And the Russian Union of Journalists, a strong voice against the march to silence any independent reporting, was ordered to leave its Moscow headquarters just days before the international conference.
The few remaining critics increasingly write or speak out at their peril, as new laws tighten the government’s grip. Most recently, the definition of extremism has been expanded to include media criticism of state officials. That can mean jail time for the reporter and the shutting down of the news outlet. Nina Ognianova of the Committee to Protect Journalists puts it chillingly: “The process of squeezing critical journalism out of the public space is now near complete.”
(Continued here.)
Journalists from around the world who will gather in Moscow next week are poised to stand up for their colleagues in a country where journalism and journalists are increasingly under attack. The 1,000 media representatives plan to establish a commission to finally investigate the growing number of unsolved murders of journalists in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Russia is now the third deadliest country for journalists, after Iraq and Algeria, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Since the year 2000, when President Putin was first elected, at least 14 journalists have been murdered because of their work. None of these murders have been solved.
A journalists’ commission is no substitute for what Mr. Putin’s government has denied — justice. But it should draw attention to their murders and what they were investigating. It also may help focus attention on the methodical destruction of the fledgling free press that sprouted in Russia after the fall of Communism.
After Mr. Putin took over, national television stations were the first to lose their independence. Major newspapers are increasingly controlled by those who do the state’s bidding. The radio correspondents for the Russian News Service, the main source of news for radio stations, resigned earlier this month to protest censorship by new owners. And the Russian Union of Journalists, a strong voice against the march to silence any independent reporting, was ordered to leave its Moscow headquarters just days before the international conference.
The few remaining critics increasingly write or speak out at their peril, as new laws tighten the government’s grip. Most recently, the definition of extremism has been expanded to include media criticism of state officials. That can mean jail time for the reporter and the shutting down of the news outlet. Nina Ognianova of the Committee to Protect Journalists puts it chillingly: “The process of squeezing critical journalism out of the public space is now near complete.”
(Continued here.)
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