Q: Jeanne, Cavelier, you’re Head of the RSF Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk since 2019.
You’ve also spent time in Russia as a reporter and correspondent when things weren’t as bad as today, as for freedom of the media and freedom of speech.
Would you say that Russian journalists have any choice whatsoever today, inside the country, when it comes to upholding objective journalistic standards or being the least critical ?
A: Russian society is now fully under control, or so. Exposing your opinions, even in the street, can lead to imprisonment, all the more so if you are a journalist who reveals facts that deviate from the Kremlin's line. The country has become extremely dangerous for those who resist censorship and want to produce reliable information: most of them decided to flee in order to work independently. The few others are forced to hide, to be very cautious. Or they run the risk of being thrown into prison at any time, like the 40 media professionals in Russian jails today. Another big difference with when I was a correspondent in Moscow: as foreign journalists, we felt relatively protected compared to our Russian colleagues, by our accreditation. Since US reporter Evan Gershkovich’s arrest on a false spying charge, the Moscow-based correspondents are not only under closer surveillance, but they feel very fragile and are put under huge pressure.
Q: Reporters without Borders RSF is actively reaching out to Russian citizens, as well as Belarusians, trying to give them adequate and trustworthy news and information. The satellite project Svoboda and a recently launched Propaganda Monitor are some of the measures.
Do they have any effect?
A: We hope so! It's a long-distance race against propaganda. Unlike our immediate support to journalists in obtaining visas, replacing equipment or financing their relocation for instance, the impact of actions to reveal the Russian disinformation manipulations or to broadcast reliable channels through a satellite bouquet can’t be directly measurable on a big scale. But these are essential steps. If the authorities decide a YouTube shutdown - they did it partially in Russia last summer - the citizens will still be able to watch the independent news channels through the Svoboda Satellite package. It is accessible to 4.5 million households within Russia and approximately 800 thousand in occupied Ukraine without additional equipment. Several Western social networks are banned, and YouTube became an essential tool for the Russian independent news media in exile to reach their audience: they had over 34 million monthly subscribers in August 2024, i.e. 10 million more than in August 2022, according to a study released last month by the JX Fund - the fund for journalism in exile we launched a few weeks after the big-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 - and the Fix Media. RSF continues to do everything it can to help the media bypass censorship and reach their audiences in these authoritarian countries.
Q: RSF is also supporting Russian journalists in exile. Some of them work with Svoboda and the Propaganda Monitor, others have founded their own media abroad or continue the work that was interrupted in Russia, hoping this will make a difference.
Does it have any impact, given the old belief that protests, opinions and dissent outside the country are waisted on Moscow, eg Aleksey Navalnyj, who refused not to return?
A: For a journalist, it is very difficult indeed to work from abroad - to maintain links with sources, with audiences, to investigate on the ground via proxies, to check information... And many obstacles threaten the survival of media outlets they work for. Some of them also have to deal with intimidation, cyber-harassment, convictions in absentia and even murder attempts, even in Europe, which shows that the Kremlin still sees independent journalists in exile as a threat for its narratives. But despite all these difficulties, the exile media continue to reach Russian citizens (the JX Fund and The Fix Media assessed this reach at 6 to 9% of the adult population last year). In addition to investing into YouTube and Telegram channels since 2022, where the most significant growth among audiences of the Russian independent exiled media have been seen, they develop a wide range of innovative solutions to expand them, like Google chrome extensions for high-speed YouTube access, PDF clones of web pages, Magic Links... It is essential to support them, they know how to reach their audiences. RSF not only helped them to relocate and survive to fight propaganda, especially through the JX Fund, but also to bypass censorship, thanks to the Svoboda Satellite Bouquet to broadcast their content and the #CollateralFreedom operation to create “mirror” websites, like for the most successful one Meduza.
Q: What do we know about Russian journalists being sentenced and jailed? The RSF section in Finland is currently showcasing Belarusian journalists in prison in a postbox exhibition, but very little has been reported about detained Russian journalists. Why is this?
A: I don’t know how the topic of Russian jailed journalists is covered in Finnish media, but at RSF we monitor their situation of course. Today, we count 39 imprisoned journalists because of their work in Russia. Their names, as well as the names of all imprisoned journalists around the world, are included in our Barometer, on RSF.org . Among these 39, 19 are Ukrainian journalists, from Crimea or other Ukrainian occupied territories. Our last publication is about the young and brave Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roschyna who died in a Russian prison last October 10 in unknown circumstances. She probably passed through Taganrog prison, near the border with Ukraine, which is notorious for tortures of prisoners.
Q: There are six RSF sections outside the RSF Paris HQ, one of them in Finland and one in Sweden, traditionally top countries in the world famous RSF Press Freedom Index.
What makes RSF a unique global actor in the world of media support and activism in the field of freedom of information ? What is it that we do right?
A: The organisation's work is very broad. Our strategy changed these last few years. We were an NGO specialised in “naming and shaming”. Now we have a 360° strategy. To establish a balance of power, we have a presence in the media and on social networks, but we are also developing our investigation activities and practical assistance in the field - like we did with centers for press freedom in Ukraine and in Lebanon-, offensive legal actions against private companies, states or individuals. We are developing innovative projects like the Svoboda Satellite Package. The goal is to be influential enough to be able not only to remove obstacles to press freedom, but also to contribute to the enactment of rules. That’s why we launched structural initiatives like the Forum on Information & Democracy or the Journalism Trust Initiative. RSF works on 4 levels: press freedom, as we did before; but also relations between the media and the public; organisation of the information market; and finally, the level of the information space and global communication. For all this, we rely on a thorough and dynamic international network, with highly motivated people to defend press freedom and the right to reliable information. At the headquarters based in Paris, we are in constant contact with RSF’s offices and sections in 13 countries and with RSF’s representatives and correspondents in almost every country of the world.
Jeanne Cavelier, Head of the RSF Eastern Europe and Central Asia Desk, will visit Finland on October23rd
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