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International JournalismReporting Stories in Russia That No One Will PublishThose who own and control the media want to secure political influence, not touncover political corruption.By Yevgenia AlbatsAfter Watergate and the workof The Washington Post’s BobWoodward and Carl Bernsteinthat led to President Nixon’s resignation,young reporters dreamt of emulatingthis kind of investigative journalismfeatured in the movie “All thePresident’s Men.”However, quite often in many othercountries—including Russia, where Iwork as an independent, investigativejournalist—the situation can turn outvery differently. The upcoming movie“The Insider,” rather than “All thePresident’s Men,” often turns out to betrue. “The Insider” tells the well-knownstory of CBS’s “60 Minutes” famouscorrespondent Mike Wallace, whosebosses refused to broadcast a piece onBig Tobacco. Those who owned themedia outlet were fearful of losing advertisingrevenues and of getting embroiledin a costly lawsuit with tobaccocompanies. In short, an investigativescoop was held because of the owner’sfear about consequences if the storywas broadcast.In my recent experience, unfortunately,this is a very familiar script. Thereasons for this reside in Russia’s historyand its current political situation.Despite the new democratic elections,Russia has failed to create strong democraticinstitutions, but succeeded inbecoming one of the 10 most corruptcountries in the world, according tothe Transparency International CorruptionPerception Index. This oughtto provide plenty of fertile ground forinvestigative reporting. However, at thesame time, the notion that “free speech”and “uncensored media” create thefoundation for the practice of democracyis still not well understood. Sowhat happens is that media outletsbecome controlled by the elite andpowerful who don’t want their powerand prosperity to be threatened.Let me share a few examples of whatI’ve experienced in my reporting:November of 1996. It was just fourmonths after Boris Yeltsin’s overwhelmingvictory over his communist competitor,long-time communist partyapparatchick Gennady Zyuganov.Izvestia, then the biggest and the mostrespectable national paper which Iworked for, asked me to write a pieceon my long-time “heroes”—the KGB,the Russian secret police who werenotorious for their violations of humanrights. The essence of the Russian secretservice had changed little after theSoviet Union ceased to exist. I wrotethe piece—but 15 minutes before thepaper went into printing, the articlewas called back from the page. Twohours later, my story somehow foundits way to my “heroes” on Lubyanka(the place in Moscow where KGB headquartersare located). What had happenedbecame clear a couple of monthslater. Izvestia had been put up for sale.(In the Soviet Union the paper hadbeen owned, as all media were, by thestate; since autumn of 1991 it had beenowned by its own journalists.) One ofthe major investors in Izvestia, for somereason, did not want to attack the secretpolice. I went public about thecase, because when one writes storiessuch as this on the KGB publicity is theonly protection a journalist has from acontract killer. Izvestia fired me. I fileda lawsuit and won, but the newspaper’spages were closed to me.May of 1997. I am the anchor andauthor of the TV magazine on pressand politics—something like NBC’s“Meet the Press”—produced by NTV(Non-government television), Russia’sfirst—and still the very best—independentnetwork owned by the MOSTmedia.A person whom I interviewedon the air spoke harshly of the chieflieutenant of one of Russia’s most powerfulmedia moguls, Boris Berezovsky,who was then an ally of the owner ofNTV. Six days later my TV magazineshow was cancelled by the network’sbosses, and I was out of a job.September of 1997. I did an investigativeseries on the Moscow MayorYuri Luzhkov, who is currently a presidentialcandidate in the upcoming 2000presidential election in Russia. Theseries, written soon after Americanbusinessman Paul Tatum was killed inMoscow, was far from complementaryof the Mayor. In my reporting, I duginto Luzhkov’s connections with someRussian businessmen who were subjectsof Interpol’s interest. (My investigationof this aspect of the case wasmade with the help of colleagues fromtwo other countries.) I took my story tofour major Russian newspapers andweeklies before I was able to get itpublished in a then-new and independentweekly, Novaya Gazeta. The reactionof the editors at the four otherpublications was almost hysterical: “Areyou crazy? The day after we publishsome negative story exposing Moscow’sMayor or his closest entourage, ourbills on electricity, water, office rentwill double or even triple. We are notsuicidal by any means!” They were beingbrutally honest. Novaya Gazeta didget into trouble as a result of publishingmy series: The renovation of itsnew office space was stopped, apparentlyunder the order of the Moscowcity government. I also received a letterin my mailbox—“You deserve a bullet”—along with some nasty phonecalls.March of 1998. I was trying to publisha story that was the result of athree-month investigation I’d done thatexposed Russian government and semi-Nieman Reports / Fall 1999 25