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What are the prospects for the
opposition movement now in
Russia? Thirty years ago, we were
all enamored with democracy. Today
it seems to me that many people
are enamored with dictatorship. In
that sense, the context has changed
a great deal. In 1989, millions of
people marched through Moscow
to end the Communist Party’s
monopoly on power. What happened
to all those people? The answer is
fear. Fear has returned.
You have said media freedom is
the antidote to dictatorship. Is
it also an antidote to fear? It’s a
very strange paradox. We call on
people to be brave. Yet we publish
truths that terrify them. We show
them the machinery of the state,
and we are obligated to show them
how this machinery works. But the
more honest and penetrating our
investigations, the more people are
afraid.
SinceyoufoundedNovayaGazeta,
severalofitsreportershavebeen
killed.Howdoesyournewsroom
dealwiththatlevelofdanger?After
enoughtimeonthisjob,somedan-
gersfadelikesirensintheback-
ground.It ’slikewe’reusedtoliving
withacertainlevelofradiationin
theair.Wepushittotheside.Itbe-
comesapartoflife.
Whatdoyouseeasthefuture
ofjournalism?TheWashington
PostoncehadasourcecalledDeep
Throat.Thateraisgone.Thereare
nomore[government]insiders.
Theyaretooafraidofthestate,the
securityservices.Nowwehavejour-
nalistswhoknowcomputerpro-
gramming,whowritecode,whocan
extractwhatweneedfromBigData.
Hugecollectivesofjournalistscando
thatworkfromanywhere.Thatisthe
future.—SIMONSHUSTER
What changed in your life after the
Nobel? It feels like getting a magic
wand that you don’t quite know how
to use. In the fi rst few days after
the Nobel Committee made the an-
nouncement, we got bundles of let-
ters asking us for help. Help for peo-
ple with disabilities. Help for people
unjustly imprisoned. In our country,
many people have started to see us as
a place to turn.
What is the mood now among in-
dependent journalists in Russia?
We see that a war is being waged
against us. And as long as we’re at
war, competition gives way to soli-
darity. That doesn’t mean we’ve
stopped chasing scoops. But we
don’t see each other as competitors
anymore. We’ve banded together.
Keeping your newspaper alive
has often forced you to negotiate
with the state. How will the Nobel
changethosenegotiations?Mytake
on that question is pessimistic. My
country likes to show that it couldn’t
carelessabouttheworld’sjudgments
The state’s position is, “We’ve got
oil and gas. We’ve got rockets... So
here’s the deal. We live the way we
want,andyoumindyourbusiness.Or
elsewe’llhitback.”Giventhatlackof
respect for the world’s institutions,
whywouldtheyrespectaninstitution
like the Nobel Prize? I don’t see why.
Ifanything,Iseehowitcouldbecome
a liability for us.
You have said that if it had been
yourchoice,youwouldhavegiven
the prize to Alexei Navalny, the
imprisoned leader of the opposi-
tionmovement.Why?Hehasfaced
his imprisonment stoically and cou-
rageously. He has shown us all how
to have a backbone, how to have
a sense of irony and humor, to be
brave. These are qualities I hold in
the highest regard.
How did you
cope with
the murder
of your star
reporter, Anna
Politkovskaya,
15 years ago?
Dmitry Muratov A winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on
who should have gotten it, the role of fear in Russian life
and why media freedom matters
9 QUESTIONS
ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO—AP
