{"id":11280,"date":"2024-08-21T09:03:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T07:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/people-should-not-be-left-alone-with-propaganda"},"modified":"2024-08-21T09:03:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T07:03:00","slug":"people-should-not-be-left-alone-with-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/people-should-not-be-left-alone-with-propaganda","title":{"rendered":"PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE LEFT ALONE WITH PROPAGANDA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ekaterina Glikman is one of the\u00a0founders and the first deputy editor\u00a0of Russian media in exile Novaya\u00a0Gazeta Europe, an online platform\u00a0launched in April 2022. She currently\u00a0lives in Switzerland. Previously she\u00a0worked for the independent Russian\u00a0newspaper Novaya Gazeta for over\u00a020 years.\u00a0<\/strong>This interview is taken from the 13th issue of Mediation, entitled \u2018Structuring exiled journalism in a more authoritarian world\u2019, which you can find here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Novaya Gazeta was Russia\u2019s largest independent media outlet for over 30 years and was\u00a0one of the last surviving publications inside the\u00a0country to hold the Kremlin to account. What\u00a0drew you to work in exile?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ekaterina Glikman<\/strong>: Seven Novaya Gazeta employees have been murdered for doing their jobs since\u00a0Putin came to power, but even so, the newspaper\u00a0kept going. After the beginning of Russia’s full-scale\u00a0invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 decided by\u00a0Putin and after he imposed military censorship in\u00a0March 2022, press freedom no longer exists in\u00a0Russia. Our logic is: if it\u2019s not possible to provide\u00a0Russians with truthful information being in Russia,\u00a0then it must be done from abroad. People should\u00a0not be left alone with propaganda. No one deserves\u00a0that. At least half of the population is against war\u00a0but they cannot express their opinion and they are\u00a0represented nowhere. Independent journalism is\u00a0their only voice and connection to real information, to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

What is it like reporting from outside, gaining\u00a0access to reliable information and maintaining\u00a0ties with your audience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many reporters have remained in Russia, even\u00a0though they are in danger there. They work for us\u00a0secretly. We hide their personalities using pseudonyms. We even hide them from our own team.\u00a0Those reporters who are at greatest risk are known\u00a0only to one or two members of our team. We try\u00a0to protect our sources of information from Russia\u00a0as much as possible. We also check documents\u00a0and try to counter state disinformation with facts. I\u00a0am very worried about my colleagues and informants in Russia. Each of them is facing years (and\u00a0even decades) of imprisonment for collaborating\u00a0with our media, as we have been labelled as an\u00a0“undesirable organization”, that is, criminals, in\u00a0Russia. And those brave people who provide us\u00a0with information from the territories of Ukraine\u00a0occupied by Russian troops are risking their lives.<\/p>\n

Our aim is to reach Russian audiences with fact-based reporting, to counter the Kremlin\u2019s censorship, propaganda, and disinformation. Our readers\u00a0in Russia bypass blockades (naturally, our website\u00a0is blocked!) using vpn services. We also use social\u00a0media not yet blocked in Russia (such as Telegram\u00a0and YouTube) to inform and raise awareness\u00a0among Russians. And then there’s a special example: in the last two years we have been doing\u00a0newsletters for Russian prisoners and have earned\u00a0a good reputation behind\u00a0the bars. That’s why we\u00a0were the first media outlet\u00a0to be able to tell the world\u00a0the details of Alexei\u00a0Navalny’s death. In that\u00a0distant colony in the\u00a0Russian Arctic, there were also our readers, and\u00a0they became our sources of information.<\/p>\n

What are the psychological effects of reporting\u00a0in exile?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of our journalists left the country overnight.\u00a0Since then, they have mostly been covering the\u00a0war in Ukraine and repression in Russia seven days\u00a0a week, hardly ever leaving the newsroom. Our 70\u00a0reporters are very young and have been living in\u00a0exile for two years, with no prospect of returning\u00a0to Russia. They don\u2019t know when they may see\u00a0their relatives and parents again, so it is very hard\u00a0for them. Recognizing their psychological challenges is just as crucial as ensuring their physical\u00a0safety.<\/p>\n

Digital surveillance of journalists in exile is\u00a0becoming alarming. How do you deal with this\u00a0situation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are two aspects here. We have already\u00a0become used to facing threats from the Russian\u00a0authorities. Unfortunately, western intelligence\u00a0services are not lagging behind our state either:\u00a0Pegasus spyware was found on the devices of\u00a0journalists in exile. The second fact turned us into\u00a0healthy sceptics.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ekaterina Glikman is one of the\u00a0founders and the first deputy editor\u00a0of Russian media in exile Novaya\u00a0Gazeta Europe, an online platform\u00a0launched in April 2022. She currently\u00a0lives in Switzerland. Previously she\u00a0worked for the independent Russian\u00a0newspaper Novaya Gazeta for over\u00a020 years.\u00a0This interview is taken from the 13th issue of Mediation, entitled \u2018Structuring exiled journalism in a more authoritarian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":11281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 17:37:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}