Doesn't do you any credit

On March 13, the Public Collegium for Complaints against the Press published on its website ( http://www.presscouncil.ru/ ) a decision in the case of Zoya Svetova versus the newspaper Izvestia. Let us remind you that we are talking about the complaint of the author of the Daily Journal Zoya Svetova against the newspaper Izvestia in connection with the publication of an article by Vladimir Perekrest “Markelov and Baburova did not end up together by chance,” which, under the guise of a journalistic investigation, contained speculation about personal relationships between the murdered lawyer and the journalist and that they could become victims of Markelov’s rival, who, as the author suggests, could be an “antifa figure” or an anarchist.

The Weekly Journal initiated the collection of signatures for Svetova’s appeal to the Collegium, and also described in detail how the meeting of the Collegium on March 5 took place. Let us recall that the member of the Board, Alexei Kara-Murza, who gave a report on the case, and the author of the expert report, Joseph Dzyaloshinsky, certified the Perekrest article as unethical and not suitable for the term “journalistic investigation.” On the same day, it became known that the Collegium calls on the editor-in-chief of Izvestia, Vladimir Mamontov, to send personal letters to the widow of Stanislav Markelov and the parents of Anastasia Baburova “with appropriate apologies on behalf of the newspaper.” also appeared on the Collegium’s website Mamontov’s commentary : if earlier he actually preferred to hide behind the back of Perekrest, who declared that the newspaper would not come to the Collegium meeting, now he has followed him into distortion. Dzyaloshinsky, speaking at the meeting, noted that Izvestia, represented by columnist Maxim Sokolov and Perekrest itself, in response to Svetova’s accusations, takes the conversation to a different plane and accuses Svetova herself of encroaching on freedom of speech and trying to prohibit journalists from expressing versions. Mamontov’s current commentary is also dedicated to this. He claims that his opponents “necessarily need her (Baburova – G.D.) to be killed for her professional activities.” Mamontov, inaccurately quoting Blok, made it clear that in any case he “felt sorry for this girl,” but his opponents, apparently, did not. He still does not see anything unethical in Perekrest’s article and continues to develop the version about the personal relationship between Markelov and Baburova, now solely on the basis of his own assumptions.

According to the published decision, the Collegium did not recognize as convincing the arguments of Izvestia, on the basis of which the representatives of the newspaper did not appear at the meeting: the members of the Collegium did not find the swear words about which Perekrest wrote in Svetova’s letter, and nothing prevented the representatives of the newspaper from expressing their complaints directly to their opponents in the eyes. The board agreed that the Perekrest article is not a journalistic investigation, but only an imitation of it, and evaluates the article as “a blatant tactlessness in relation to the dead” and “an ethically unjustified invasion of privacy, built on speculation and manipulation of primitive ideas about relationships between men and a woman." In addition, the Collegium saw in Perekrest’s article signs of the use of manipulative technologies and a hint of political provocation in order to “introduce into the public consciousness ideas about the extremist nature of youth opposition movements, to make it clear that among them deviant behavior is the norm.” The board considered that Perekrest had neglected the rules of professional conduct for a journalist and stated that his article contained no signs of protecting the interests of society.

And finally, the Board “with regret” noted that the domestic press has practically never published a single article that would meet the criteria of a genuine journalistic investigation into the circumstances of the murder of Markelov and Baburova. “Taking into account the promise of the editor-in-chief of the Izvestia newspaper V.K. Mamontov to continue publishing materials devoted to this tragedy, the Public Board expresses the hope that these materials will truly be kept in the best Izvestia traditions of investigative journalism, on which several generations of readers of this newspaper were brought up “, says the text of the Board’s decision.