Politics and Press

Chechen War Reporter Found Dead

Our Kiwi correspondent forwards this story that is at the heart of the relationship of politics and the press in Russia:
As the url for this blog suggests, the focus here is often the intersection of policy and journalism. In some parts of the world that intersection too frequently produces carnage. This is surely case with the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the woman who the head of Russia’s journalism union has “described as the conscience of the country’s journalism.” It seems appropriate to draw readers’ attention to this report from the NY Times on her life and death.

Anne Applebaum has published a remembrance and an analysis of the situation for independent journalists in Russia for Slate. It is not pretty, but is worth reading to remind us of the courage that many journalists have and the price that some of them pay. And we are certainly not talking about Bill O’Reilly.