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…
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