On Friday, the Nobel Committee closed the award week by naming the Peace Prize winners: Filipino journalist Maria Ressa and her Russian counterpart, Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov. The laureates were selected from a list of nominees, which included 234 people and 95 organizations. The decision of the Nobel Committee, which undoubtedly attracted the attention of the world community to the existence of independent journalism in Russia, immediately caused controversy at home: in addition to those who congratulated Dmitry Muratov, there were those who thought that the award could have found another hero.
The decision to award the peace prize to Dmitry Muratov was announced by the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Berit Reiss-Andersen a few hours after the fifteenth anniversary of the murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Then, in 2006, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that this crime caused much more damage to Russia and the current government than the publications of the deceased author. Fifteen years later, Novaya Gazeta brought Russia quite obvious benefits: Mr. Muratov became the twentieth national Nobel laureate (if we include writers Ivan Bunin, Joseph Brodsky and physicist Vitaly Ginzburg among them) and the third laureate of the Peace Prize: before him, Andrei Sakharov was awarded 1975 and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990. Mikhail Gorbachev congratulated Mr. Muratov on the event “raising the importance of the press in the modern world to a great height.”
Finding himself in such a generally binding company, Dmitry Muratov could not help but say that the prize awarded is not so much his prize as it’s Novaya Gazeta’s prize, including its dead authors – Anna Politkovskaya, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Igor Domnikov , Natalia Estemirova, Anastasia Baburova, Stanislav Markelov.
He has already promised to spend part of the prize on charity assistance to children with spinal muscular atrophy, and part on “solving the problems of journalism.”
Russian official circles, represented by the president’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, welcomed the decision of the Norwegian committee. “We can congratulate Dmitry Muratov, – said Mr. Peskov. – He consistently works according to his ideals, he is committed to his ideals. He is talented, he is brave. “
“I think that the presentation of the prize to Dmitry is a great victory for our entire profession – journalism,” said Tina Kandelaki, Deputy Director General of Gazprom-Media. “They love Dima. Dima knows how to be friends, protect and show solidarity with his colleagues. “
However, many Russian observers jealously followed the list of nominees for the Peace Prize and, having waited for the result, hastened to note that the prize provides a direct formal basis for assigning to Novaya Gazeta – or personally to Dmitry Muratov – the status of a media foreign agent. True, others reasonably object that Novaya, as in a computer quest, has added protection.
Despite the constant acuteness of its publications, the publication has a kind of immunity in a situation when other editions are faced with serious, one might say, existential problems – for a small fraction of what – fortunately – the Novaya team allows itself. The six murdered authors is an argument that seems to rule out any controversy over special status. Now, after the Nobel recognition, Novaya has become an internationally recognized brand – like human rights activist Andrei Sakharov or Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. It seems that external protection was added to internal protection: values of this order can be attributed with some degree of confidence to inviolability. True, the biographies of Nobel laureates do not in all cases confirm that the prize is becoming a security certificate.
“Novaya Gazeta”, created – with the participation of Dmitry Muratov – in 1993, like other publications, not only with experience, but also with a time-tested set of ethical and professional rules, has its own loyal audience. Judging by the reaction of social networks, including within this audience there are enough people who were perplexed by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Of course, Dmitry Muratov remembers everything – from investigations about sponsors to publications explaining the paradoxes of remote electronic voting in Moscow during the last parliamentary elections. During Friday, the Russian-speaking public space was filled with critical responses, the meaning of which boils down to the question: if Russia and the post-Soviet space as a whole attracted the attention of the committee, why then is the laureate not Alexei Navalny or Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.
Strictly speaking, and without geo-referencing, the committee had a long list before the eyes of the committee, including Greta Thunberg, the World Health Organization, NATO, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots coalition, the Black Lives Matter movement, and two US presidents – the former, Donald Trump, and the current, Joe Biden. … Those interested can try to build any non-obvious explanations for the choice – from the committee’s desire to avoid accusations of obvious odiousness, bypassing the desire to celebrate Russia, but in such a way that it reflects the difficult state of relations between Russia and the West, and ending with simple fatigue from extreme forms of struggle for peace, to background of which, perhaps, it is really worth paying attention to the people who are doing this difficult task with hard daily work.
The reasons for the choice, however, are set out by the committee.
“From the very beginning, that is, since 1993, Novaya Gazeta has published critical articles on topics ranging from corruption, police violence, illegal arrests, electoral fraud and troll factories to the use of Russian military forces in Russia and abroad. ”- explained Ms. Reiss-Andersen.
The editorial board faced “harassment, threats, violence and murder”, but “the editor-in-chief did not abandon independent politics, he defended the rights of journalists to write whatever they want, as long as it is about observing the professional and ethical standards of journalism”.
The third national peace prize is, of course, a reason for joy and pride, including for the Russian journalistic community. But the name of the second laureate, a journalist from the Philippines, warns against too violent delight: the Philippines in the press freedom rating, which is updated every year by Reporters Without Borders, occupies 136th place, and Russia – 149th. Both countries are in the group of countries where the press is in a “difficult situation”. This is better than a “very serious situation” (like in Iran and China), but worse than “noticeable problems” (like in Poland or Brazil). Reporters consider the position of the press in a dozen countries to be good, of the former USSR, only Estonia is included in this top.
The Kommersant team congratulates Dmitry Muratov on such a high assessment of his work.
.