Don’t Cry for Russia’s Independent Media
Acquiescence to the quick erosion of freedom since Crimea was part of the Russian social contract that all too many Russian journalists were willing to sign.
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Photographer: Stian Lysberg Solum/AFP via Getty Images
In the less than two weeks since Vladimir Putin started his war of invasion against Ukraine, he’s managed to inflict massive damage both on the neighboring country and on his own. The Russian media industry is one of the lesser victims of this criminal undertaking, which has already killed thousands and sent millions of refugees fleeing to safety. Yet its demise deserves attention for two reasons: The way it distorts the information picture of the war for Russians and outside observers — and its not inconsiderable share of Russians’ collective guilt.
Some disclosure is in order. I was involved in the creation of Russia’s non-state media from the mid-1990s through the early 2010s as the founding editor, editorial director or publisher of a number of major publications, including the daily Vedomosti, then a joint venture of The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, and the Russian editions of Newsweek, Forbes and SmartMoney. I also took part in setting up two media outlets that were forced to shut down or blocked in Russia in recent days — TV Rain, where, as its first editor-in-chief, I hired the original news team in 2010, and Republic.ru (formerly Slon.ru), where I was the founding editor and one of the shareholders. So the co-optation of some private media in Russia and the destruction of others has meant the ruin of my life’s work. I am therefore not an objective observer of Russia’s backsliding to Soviet-era censorship.