‘Don’t let the facts spoil a good story’

an article by Ilya Yablokov published in Eurozine (June 2017)

Russian journalism from Gorbachev to Putin

The ethos of journalistic independence that flourished in the USSR during glasnost degenerated, in the following decades, into political partisanship and commercial opportunism. In today’s Russia, self-censorship and tact are regarded as survival skills in a much-diminished sector.

Thirty years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev, the young and energetic general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, introduced the policies of glasnost – his attempt to grant freedom of speech to the Soviet people. For a society that for sixty years had lived in a state of total state censorship, this was a massive step forward. Within a couple of years, the first independent media outlets had emerged. Journalists began challenging the authorities and rapidly became heroes for millions of Soviet citizens.

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Sorry for the long delay in bringing you this. It was hiding in the middle of the “use for ‘10_for_today’ posts”.

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