Brave Russian journalists show hope for protesting an autocracy

Opinion

This week’s brave actions of brave Russian journalists, calling out the regime’s lies and falsehoods, raise important questions for all of us in the trade.

Everyone in the news business knows how important news editors are. They choose the stories to concentrate on, and deploy reporters to get those stories covered, particularly in the case of dramatic breaking news.

Outside their offices they remain largely anonymous figures even though running the news desk can be a route to an editor’s chair.

Most of the glory goes to the bylined reporters and commentators and in the case of broadcasting, “the talent,” the presenters and interviewers who become household names by appearing in millions of households.

All that has changed. At least in the case of one brave woman.

Obvious falsehoods

Through her courageous, determined and clever actions, Marina Ovsyannikova is already the most famous news editor there has ever been.

By stepping from her office behind the scenes and occupying the limelight, for a few vital seconds of protest during the news on Channel One, Ovsyannikova has struck a blow for all news editors everywhere.

She knew, as must many other broadcasters and journalists, that such Putin-supporting state TV channels are feeding lies and myths to their 12.5 million viewers.

The obvious falsehoods include calling an aggressive invasion of a sovereign state a special military operation designed to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians from “Neo-Nazis.”

Naturally the Russian army never targets civilian centres, so the only explanation if blocks of flats are bombed are the Ukrainians must have done it to themselves. As for the thousands of Russian military casualties, they are invisible people so far as state television is concerned.

There have been protests aplenty in Russia – 4,000 academics at Moscow’s State University have signed a letter against the war. More than 15,000 people are believed to have publicly demonstrated on the streets of 53 Russian cities since 24 February only to have been rapidly detained. There is even the Orwellian case of an elderly woman arrested within seconds of appearing with a white placard on which no words appeared.

Opposition leader Alexi Navalny, in jail on alleged fraud charges, has called for daily demonstrations against the invasion.

The worry is that in an authoritarian state, endless numbers of such protesters can just be lifted and disappear quietly into the mouth of the Russian police and prison system.

Brave and clever

The case of Ovsyannikova is different. Because she was an employee of Channel One she was able to take her placard to the heart of the news studio and shout: “Stop The War. No To War.”

She was also able to tell millions of viewers on Russia’s most watched news show, that they were being lied to and fed Putin propaganda.

She was brave because she took on the lonely task of doing such a thing and could easily have faced up to 15 years in jail for promoting the “fake news” that Russia launched a war of invasion against a peaceful neighbouring country.

Ovsyannikova was also clever because before her action she recorded a statement attacking Russia’s actions.

“What is happening now in Ukraine is a crime and Russia is the aggressor country,” she said adding that her father is Ukrainian and her mother is Russian and that the two countries were never enemies.

More tellingly for the media, Ovsyannikova issued what amounts to a mea culpa expressing shame that she had been for so long involved in spreading Kremlin propaganda and allowing the Russian people “to be fooled.”

It is that recording released on social media that will give greater substance and depth to her brief on-air protest and has already conferred enough international fame to protect her from  imprisonment.

It was almost certainly that fame, and perhaps the wish to avoid creating another martyr, that surprisingly led to an instant court appearance and a fine of 30,000 roubles, the equivalent of a paltry $280.

There are fears that she will face more serious charges once the media spotlight has moved on.

A lesson for all journalists

Ovsyannikova is not alone, experienced TV presenter Liliya Gildeyeva has quit her anchor role on the pro-Putin Gazprom-Media’s NTC channel.

Gildeyeva fled the country before sending a letter of resignation and posting a “No to War” message.

Of the two it was the news editor who showed the greater courage, and will inevitably face the greater consequences.

Their actions do, however, raise important questions for all journalists. How responsible are they for the information they produce even though individuals are often individual cogs in larger machines where the political tone is decided much higher up the hierarchy.

For soldiers the question of responsibility is clear. The Nuremburg tribunals after the Second World War refused to accept the “I was just obeying orders” defence.

Some of those Russian generals now responsible for laying waste Ukrainian cities could yet find themselves before international courts as war criminals.

Lawyers have an obligation to give representation for the apparently indefensible.

But what do journalists in authoritarian states do, where any sign of dissent is cracked down on and unwillingness to say black is white is seen as betrayal?

Putin faces losing this information war

Sitting in the safety of London it is too easy to pontificate other than to salute the courage of Ovsyannikova, the news editor who created one hell of a story, and Gildeyeva, who decided to disrupt her life rather than repeat the lie that Russia is engaged in a limited military operation rather than a war of aggression.

The actions of Ovsyannikova and Gildeyeva are important signs that perhaps, just perhaps, Putin is starting to lose the information war inside Russia, an information battle that has been totally lost elsewhere.

Internal Russian opinion polls, if any reliance can be placed on them, are still suggesting that the majority of the population still support Vladimir Putin.

That could slowly change as the impact of Western sanctions start to bite on the Russian economy and more people notice how life is changing for the worse in so many ways.

The decision to block Meta-owned Instagram, used regularly by more than 60 million Russians, must surely count as a sign of weakness.

In the end, whether by formal means or through millions of mobile phones the news will get inevitably get through, not least the news of the bodies of thousands of young soldiers coming home for burial.

And maybe other brave journalists will find a way to alert the Russian population that they are being lied to and fed ridiculous propaganda – either in Russia itself or by joining the diaspora.

Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays.

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