By Fred Weir, Christian Science Monitor, 8/4/22

Under the pressure of war, crackdown, and emigration, Russia’s media landscape looks increasingly as it did in the bygone Soviet era.

In the Cold War, that meant a consolidated national press offering the official narrative with little political diversity, and a range of alternative voices based outside the country trying various means to penetrate official obstacles to reach Russian audiences.

It’s not quite that bad yet today.

The funding for state media has indeed tripled since the war began, even as laws to curtail critical journalism have proliferated. And most independent media – and the journalists who worked with them – have left Russia in recent months after being declared “foreign agents,” forbidden from reporting on the war and, in many cases, physically shut down by authorities.

But thanks to the advances and ubiquity of the internet, independent media today are able to make their voices heard in a way that was impossible during the days of the USSR. Some of them have established full-scale operations from a safe perch outside the country, aiming to bring alternative news and views to Russians online. Quite a few journalists have remained in Russia but retreated to obscure precincts of social media to express themselves, or to provide information anonymously for existing outlets.

“There are so many ways to reach people nowadays that were unimaginable in the past,” says Masha Lipman, co-editor of the Russia Post, an online journal of expert debate in English and Russian that still seems to be accessible in Russia without using a VPN. “As long as the internet exists, and the restrictions are not impenetrable – the Russian government is trying – then it’s as if the émigré press now has a real foothold and can compete in the Russian information sphere.”

Russians setting the agenda

Not every independent journalist has decamped abroad. Some continue working within the still-permitted spectrum, trying to produce valuable work within increasingly restrictive legal conditions. And a few say they’re just not leaving, no matter what.

“I was born in Russia and have lived here all my life. Why should I leave?” says journalist Vasily Polonsky. He’s worked for several alternative outlets, including TV Dozhd and the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and has been declared a “foreign agent” under Russian law. “Who will stay here to express a position different from the official line?” he asks. “As long as it’s possible, I’ll stay here and work, even if I can only seem to use about 15% of my professional capacities.”

But most of Russia’s critical media voices now operate outside the country – a situation that is starting to resemble the old Cold War.

Then, the Russian émigré press was largely confined to exiled readerships, with few opportunities to reach audiences inside the USSR. Only big state-supported radio stations such as Radio Liberty, the BBC, and Voice of America had the capabilities to counter Soviet jamming efforts and bring a different narrative to Soviet citizens in their own languages.

“In those days, millions would be listening, and they considered those signals from outside the country to be the voice of truth,” says Ms. Lipman.

But there are some important differences from the past, she says. “Those Cold War-era radio stations were run by foreign governments who were fighting their ideological battles with the USSR. Russians may have worked for them, but they were not in charge. Today Russians are running these [exiled] media ventures; they are the bosses and they set the agenda.”

The online newspaper Meduza, probably the most popular opposition-minded voice, decamped years ago to Latvia where, despite mounting difficulties with news-gathering inside Russia, it continues to make its coverage available to any Russian able to use a VPN. The TV station Dozhd was finally hounded out of its Moscow studios in March, after years of tightening regulations, and recently started broadcasting from a borrowed studio in Riga, using YouTube, a platform that has not yet been blocked in Russia.

“It didn’t make any sense to stay. We’d have been no use to anyone, including our families,” says Ekaterina Kotrikadze, news director at Dozhd. “This is really different. How do you reach people? How do you understand the country when you are outside of it?”

Staff members at Dozhd have been debating how to continue gathering news and contributions from inside Russia, bearing in mind that such work may be criminalized by Russian authorities, putting journalists at serious risk. They are especially concerned for people like Mr. Polonsky, Ms. Kotrikadze says.

“It’s just impossible to do your job as a journalist from inside the country now,” she says. “There are several journalists who remain and continue to work. Polonsky is one of ours who refuses to leave. What to do about him?”

“People were waiting for us”

Despite government efforts to silence them, independent media have been able to maintain a connection with their audience. Ms. Kotrikadze says her first show in late July from Latvia – she’s also an anchor – got a million and a half views, and a lot of positive feedback.

“People were waiting for us, and knew where to look,” she says. “We’ve kept in touch on Telegram channels, of course, and our relaunch is still partial. But we are back on the air.”

The now-closed Ekho Moskvy radio station has also fallen back on YouTube. Several of its top contributors now broadcast their familiar critical commentary on a channel they call Live Nail, though not full time.

YouTube remains a viable platform for alternative Russian media because its made-in-Russia replacement, RuTube, is still not ready after suffering from a devastating hacker attack early in the war. Many official Russian news channels, and pro-Kremlin voices such as Sputnik and Russia Today, still rely on YouTube, and hence it remains one of the few pluralistic platforms that Russians can access without a VPN.

The biggest worry, Ms. Lipman says, is that independent media have lost their former business models. “News outlets like Meduza and Dozhd used to get advertising income in the Russian market, and were relatively successful. Now they are completely cutoff from that, and it’s going to become a problem.”

“The situation is changing very fast”

Some independent outlets try to carry on within Russia, despite being labeled “foreign agents” and subjected to constant legal harassment. The newspaper Novaya Gazeta attempted to continue publishing without breaking any of the new laws concerning war reporting, but nevertheless was forced to stop in March. In early July, it successfully registered the first issue of a weekly magazine, called No, but its site was subsequently blocked.

Nadezhda Prusenkova, Novaya Gazeta’s press secretary, says the staff has no idea what will happen next.

“We’re going through a very difficult period,” she says. “It’s not clear whether we’ll open a new site, or issue another edition. Right now, all I can say is that the situation is changing very fast.”

One publication that continues with some tiny semblance of normality is the 20-year-old Caucasian Knot, which produces critical news coverage about southern Russia and the wider Caucasus region. It’s been declared a “foreign agent” and its website has been blocked in Russia. But despite pending court cases, the site has been able to keep working so far.

Its editor, Grigory Shvedov, attributes that to the fact that its area of focus is not Ukraine. It employs a network of regional journalists and bloggers, most of whom are not anonymous, to concentrate largely on human rights issues in the Caucasus. They have attempted to calculate casualty rates for Russian soldiers from the region who’ve been sent to Ukraine, but only using open and official sources.

“It’s not getting any easier,” he says. “Some can’t work at all. Some topics cannot be covered. But we want to keep working. And we intend to do that until it becomes impossible.”