PressEthic

Yesterday evening, at 1930 GMT, the BBC’s This World program aired an interview, conducted in April, with the late Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, in which she said:

[Vladimir Putin] became president without any program, without any words. If there was an independent press they would tear Putin apart, piece by piece […] He will leave a Soviet country with a downtrodden media and with strong fascist undercurrents.

Spoken by a reporter whose strong criticism of the Kremlin is generally believed to be the reason she was shot dead six months later, these words weigh heavy on my young and (sometimes naïve) would-be-journalist mind.

The poisoning of former KGB spy, Alexander Litvinenko, who is reported to have been investigating Politkovskaya’s death before he died Thursday, reinforces the current urgency for free speech in this particular situation.

I am lucky enough to have lived in societies in which, as far as I can tell, the press was relatively free. These tragic events come as a reminder that an independent media is not guaranteed, but rather has to be actively maintained, or even fought for, by all those involved.

I also wonder whether the potential power of the press is never more apparent than when it is suppressed.