Russian Journalists Meet a Crackdown With Dark Humor, and Subscribers

Meduza, a leading independent news site, fights back with jokes and a stunning donation campaign. But can it stand up to the Russian state?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/22/business/media/russian-journalists-independent.html

By Ben Smith Aug. 22, 2021Updated 8:58 p.m. ET

RIGA, Latvia — There’s a certain kind of American podcast where two young journalists investigate their own medium-size problems, laugh a lot, interview their moms.

Sonya Groysman, a 27-year old journalist in Moscow working for the independent news site Proekt, was a fan of those shows, and so when she and her colleague Olga Churakova ran into trouble, it seemed natural to start recording. But the problems they’ve discussed in that familiar format are terrifying and existential. Last month the two women were placed on the Russian government’s list of “foreign agents,” a designation that threatens to end their careers and, if they fail to fill out reams of paperwork and attach a 24-word disclaimer even to personal social-media posts, could mean heavy fines and jail time.

So their podcast is called “Hi, You’re a Foreign Agent.” The first episode begins with Ms. Groysman stumbling, laughing, through the disclaimer, which translates as: “THIS NEWS MEDIA/MATERIAL WAS CREATED AND/OR DISSEMINATED BY A FOREIGN MASS MEDIA PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT AND/OR A RUSSIAN LEGAL ENTITY PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT.” In another episode, Ms. Churakova tries and fails to get a job at a fast-food chain specializing in blini after explaining her new status.

Ms. Groysman and her co-host aren’t asking listeners for money to support the podcast, she said, because she’s worried that her use of something like the American crowdfunding platform Patreon could be misconstrued and held against her. The podcast, she said, is simply their way of staying “on assignment.”

In February I wrote in this space about the unlikely flowering in Russian online journalism over the past year. In a country where, essentially, every major television broadcaster is a highly produced, pro-government analogue of Fox News, a number of digital outlets have delivered riveting scoops. They exposed the family wealth of President Vladimir V. Putin and reported on the agents who poisoned the opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.

It was all part of a global wave of unflinching journalism in unfriendly places — the Afghan press was, until last week, the freest in its region — where autocrats have increasingly viewed reporters as a threat. This summer, the Russian government has tried to stop the wave by designating its highest-impact critics as “undesirable,” or as foreign agents, or both.

The founder of the news site Proekt, which translates as Project, left the country. The independent business news site VTimes shut down. Last Friday, the government added to its list TV Rain, long a top independent outlet, and the news site iStories. And Ms. Groysman was arrested Saturday protesting the move and detained for five hours; she recorded the encounter for the next episode of “Hi, You’re a Foreign Agent,” coming Tuesday.

The “foreign agent” designation has practical consequences, including effectively driving away business partners. It also forces journalists to attach the 24-word disclaimer to their work, even their personal social media posts. And it comes with echoes of a dark, Stalinist past.

“This immediately transfers you into the 1930s,” said Ivan Kolpakov, the editor in chief of the news site Meduza, whose audience of more than 10 million a month has made it the fattest target of the crackdown....

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/22/business/media/russian-journalists-independent.html