Blogs

More Dangerous Than Spying?

By Hillary Profita

December 8, 2006 / 1:15 PM EST / CBS News

(AP)

The death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, has held the media's attention for days, as suspicion of more poisonings continue to arise (the James Bond-like storyline doesn't hurt, either.) Litvinenko – who had long been a critic of the government – was sure that it was Russian President Vladimir Putin who poisoned him with radioactive polonium 210 (which has since become quite the infamous radioactive substance.) What isn't getting as much attention – except on the Wall Street Journal's front page today – is the reality that spying isn't the only dangerous line of work in Russia.

"Russia is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist," writes the Journal, profiling the "muckraking tabloid" Novaya Gazeta – which has seen three of its reporters killed in the past six years. "One was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. Another died of an allergic reaction relatives suspect was caused by poisoning. A third, Anna Politkovskaya, was shot dead two months ago in the elevator of her apartment block." The paper notes that no evidence has linked the Kremlin to any of the deaths, or to the Litvinenko case.

But the paper, which "specializes in shining a light into the murky corners of Vladimir Putin's Russia," is "one of the last outposts of free speech left in Russia," says the Journal. And it has therefore earned support from none other than U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to Moscow in October. The paper has also received funding from George Soros.

Nonetheless, Novaya isn't without it's own shortcomings. According to former journalists for the paper, in order to "keep afloat," the paper "resorted to a practice endemic in the Russian media -- publishing paid-for articles masquerading as news." Eventually one of those billionaire businessmen who paid for an article ended up buying a stake in the paper. He also happened to be "a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party and, like Mr. Putin, a former KGB spy."

And the paper now faces irrelevance. "Reporters continue to turn out hard-hitting exposés, but they have little reach," writes the Journal. "Tired of politics, Russians increasingly want lighthearted stories and more reporting on celebrities -- the kind of news Novaya's journalists disdain…"