Mick Hartley

Alexandra Poolos reports on the new Russia (via Metafilter):

In 2005, I interviewed Anna Politkovskaya about working as a journalist and a human rights activist in Russia. I remember how tired she sounded on the phone, but she was clearly committed to her work. She told me that she and other activists were motivated by a Russian theory of “little business.” “It’s a special Russian theory that if you can’t change the whole world, you need to do some little things to help specific people,” she said.

Politkovskaya’s devotion got me interested in reporting on the new Russia, one that is emboldened by oil revenues and capitalism but is seeing a dramatic reversal of democratic reforms and human rights under President Vladimir Putin. Then, in a shocking and unexpected turn, Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in October 2006, before publishing an in-depth investigation of alleged government-sponsored torture in Chechnya…

Politkovskaya is just one of 14 journalists killed since Putin came to power in 2000. In March, another journalist investigating the government died after “falling” out of his window…

Oleg Panfilov, the head of the Moscow-based Journalism in Extreme Situations, called Russian media the “empire of lies.” “From a position of freedom of speech, the situation in the Russian mass media can be estimated as catastrophic,” he said. “Television is the core, with more than 90 percent of the population depending on it as their main source of information. But now in Russia all five national telechannels are used by the state for [propaganda], for distribution of an official position.” Panfilov said that there is next to no opportunity for Russians to receive independent news.

The campaign to control the media began almost as soon as Putin took office in 2000. His administration attacked the wealthy oligarchs who had privatized — often illegally and with disastrous effects for regular Russians — many state enterprises. Some who had dared to use their affluence to support Putin’s political opponents decided to flee the country.

Russians have never had much experience with independent news. “In Russia, there never was freedom of speech. The population had 80 years of communistic propaganda — they have gotten used to this type of television,” Panfilov said. “Only a small part of the population can search for independent sources of information through the Internet, or by the old Soviet tradition of listening to programs of foreign radio stations in Russian.”

The lack of interest in independent news was demonstrated recently at the annual Andrei Sakharov journalism awards — Russia’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize — for investigative journalism. Only about two dozen people were present at the awards ceremony in Moscow, with almost no press coverage.

Anna Lebedeva won the top award for her work in a small town in central Russia. During her acceptance speech, she said that because of the danger of her work and the lack of public interest, she was considering switching to “writing restaurant reviews.” “It is a terrible situation,” said Alexei Simonov, the head of the award committee and the president of the Glasnost Defense Foundation. “If you want to risk your life for very little reward, then join this profession.”

Indeed, Russia is the third most dangerous country in which to practice journalism, after Iraq and Algeria, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists…