Weekly Digest: IFJ scandal, Meduza banned in Russia

Meduza, one of the biggest independent news outlets targeting Russia, was deemed an “undesirable” organisation in the country.

The publisher is based in Latvia but reports primarily in the Russian language and predominantly for readers in or from Russia. Previously it was designated a “foreign agent” in Russia and later blocked in the wake of the Kremlin’s crackdown following the invasion of Ukraine, but the latest designation is a step further, effectively outlawing Meduza in Russia and criminalising links to the outlet like providing financial support or even sharing its materials.

As The Fix reported before, Meduza stopped collecting donations from Russia early last year and invested more resources in its English-language reporting, partly because the possibility of being deemed “undesirable” had loomed large.

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Journalists’ associations from four Nordic countries decided to quit the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in protest against its “corruptive activity”, Reuters reported.

The allegations made by Finnish, Norwegian, Danish and Icelandic unions include long standing shady financial practices (including the IFJ holding its world congress in Oman, the country with limited press freedom, with alleged financing from Omani ministries and private companies), as well as allowing representatives of the Russian state media to continue as IFJ members.

As Reuters reports, the IFJ denied the allegations and said that the organisation “had triggered a formal process for suspending and expelling the Russian Union of Journalists.”

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Around 1,000 journalism jobs have been cut in English-speaking news media businesses in January, PressGazette reports.

While the last month also saw new jobs being added by news organisations like Bloomberg and Reuters, layoffs in the United States and the United Kingdom contributed to the cut in overall number of journalism jobs.

Some of the biggest contributors to the cuts have been Reach in the UK and Vox Media in the US. (Layoffs planned by Daily Mail owner DMGT are not counted as their scale wasn’t announced at the time the analysis was conducted).

As PressGazette summarises the causes of layoffs, “recessionary fears have prompted a drop in adspend, which combined with spiking energy and material prices have left many news outlets in a difficult financial position”.

Source of the cover photo: Meduza, https://ugandajournalistsunion.com/news/2022/06/23/federation-of-asia-pacific-journalists-formed-at-ifj-congress/

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