Last island of independence in a landscape now fully padlocked, the media headed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitri Muratov has decided to put its activity on hold after a second warning from the Russian telecoms policeman.
A field of smoking ruins, that is what remains of the critical press of power in Russia. The Novaya Gazeta, famous investigative newspaper, announced on Monday that it would put its activities on hold after receiving a warning from the Russian censor, Roskomnadzor.
The break is “temporary”assures the editorial staff, who claims to stop the paper version of the newspaper and its online publications “until the end of the Russian special operation in Ukraine”. A few weeks ago, another media critic of power, Dojd television, also announced that it was going on hiatus to let the storm pass, while Echo radio in Moscow was closing its doors for good. Will these media one day return to the horizon of the Russian journalistic field? The bet is risky because more than a storm, it is unfavorable weather over the long term that has appeared in recent months. A press-grinding machine exemplified by the effective law of “foreign agents”, which has been imposing an ultimatum on all the critical voices of the country for several years. It is the latter that today silences this newspaper renowned for its independence and professionalism, founded in 1993.
On March 22, the editorial staff of the Novaya Gazeta received a first warning for having failed in its obligation to specify the status “foreign agent” from a source interviewed. On Monday, journalists received a second warning putting the very existence of the newspaper on hold.
Ethical dilemmas
“We held 34 days of ‘special operation’ under conditions of military censorship. Within the editorial staff, 96% of us decided to answer the question close or continue? by a “continue”. Novaia couldn’t leave the audience,” recalled Dmitry Muratov, editor of the newspaper and Nobel Peace Prize winner, in a message sent to his employees. Forced into censorship at the start of the war in Ukraine, the manager often considered stopping the work of his editorial staff. “We worked in the areas of hostilities, in the border areas, we assessed the losses and the destruction. We tried to understand how our people allowed two wars: the one in Ukraine, an aggression, and the one in Russia, almost a civil war”, he added. “We have lived through the most tragic days in our history, which could not have happened without leaving traces”he defended himself.
In recent days, ethical dilemmas have multiplied until they have become unmanageable. Criticized by their readers for their refusal to use the word “war”, banned in Russia, journalists had been facing an impasse since Sunday evening. The editor-in-chief had promised to publish the interview carried out Sunday of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. The interview was carried out in video by five Russian journalists, almost all exiled, so that Dmitri Muratov was even able to ask a question through one of them. But on Sunday evening, the Russian censor took the lead in banning the publication of this interview in Russia…
place of memory
Known around the world for his atypical commitment, Novaya Gazeta is led by a man with a strong character. Dmitry Muratov found himself somewhat embarrassed when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in his own name in October. Because it is the Novaya Gazeta which, through him, was awarded. This medium is more than a newspaper, it represents an example for the hundreds of Russian trainee journalists who did not see themselves working elsewhere when they left school, and who passed through the newspaper’s offices. It is also a beacon for the many other Russian media, which would dream of being able to enjoy such independence.
Finally, it is also a place of memory: eight employees of the newspaper have been assassinated since its creation with the financial assistance of Mikhail Gorbachev and his current Nobel Prize winner. It is because the Novaia became a reference that she was thus targeted, in particular by the authorities in the Russian Caucasus, following her exemplary coverage of the wars in Chechnya by the journalist Anna Politkovskaïa, killed in Moscow in 2006. In each of the Kremlin wars, the newspaper will have seen its march of maneuver decrease, to finally disappear on the occasion of this last war in Ukraine.