Journalism is becoming increasingly difficult in Russia

The state’s repressive apparatus of courts, cops and investigators are now openly directed against independent journalists, writes Oliver Carroll

Russian President Vladimir Putin (Sputnik)

The news from Russia last week: two more opposition media sites close under pressure from the Kremlin; police raid the homes of a prominent investigative journalist and his parents; a leading editor flees Russia; scores more are branded “foreign agents”. And that’s only seven days of headlines.

Russia has long been hostile to journalists. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, those in power have killed, frustrated, closed down and stood in the way of the truth. But the glib reports that regularly claimed Russian journalism was also all but dead were greatly exaggerated. For a few years in the mid-2000s, I saw the profession from the inside as an editor for the Russian version of Esquire. I witnessed first-hand the brilliance, perseverance and energy of local journalists – taking any knockback as a new challenge.

We were generally allowed to print what we wanted, which we did with abandon. Fast forward to 2021 and the pressure facing the media is of a different order – to the point that talk of the end of Russian journalism is not quite the glib exaggeration it once was. The state’s repressive apparatus of courts, cops and investigators are now openly directed against independent journalists. They face a Goliath battle to survive.