Fired for Beglov

Kommersant correspondent Maria Karpenko said that she was fired because of her Telegram channel, where she criticizes the activities of the acting governor of St. Petersburg

Maria Karpenko, co-author of the Rotunda telegram channel and until today a correspondent for Kommersant, reported that she was fired from the newspaper. According to her, “the reason was the dissatisfaction of the Kremlin and Smolny with what I write here and with the way Kommersant is covering the election campaign of Alexander Beglov.”

As Karpenko assures, the head of the publishing house, Vladimir Zhelonkin, told her that what she writes in Rotunda does not correspond to the editorial policy of Kommersant.

He called “Rotunda” “activism incompatible with journalistic status.” If we do not attribute these words to Rotunda’s critical remarks regarding the policies of the acting governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, the only thing that can be called activism is persistent attempts to ensure that the work of the city government is equally open to all journalists, which I undertook, in including on behalf of Kommersant with the consent of management. I consider such activism not only compatible with journalistic status, but also an integral part of this status,” the journalist wrote.

Karpenko is sure that the initiative to fire her did not belong to the editor of the publishing house; he faced pressure from the Kremlin: “Vladimir Zhelonkin himself said that he had no complaints about my work in the newspaper. But I know that both the presidential administration and the St. Petersburg administration expressed active dissatisfaction with my publications in Kommersant about the policies of the acting governor of St. Petersburg.”

“I know for sure that my recent publications in the Kommersant newspaper, which related to the policies of Alexander Beglov, caused dissatisfaction on the part of the authorities, so I am inclined to assess everything that happened as connected things,” the journalist told Mediazona .

In an interview with the Govorit Moskva radio station, Vladimir Zhelonkin said that the correspondent was offered the choice of remaining in the publication or writing for Rotunda.

“The situation is simple. Masha worked in two media: with us and in this very one. We asked her to make a choice. She chose to work at Rotunda. It's her right. This question arose not because of any specific publications, but because of working in two media,” Zhelonkin said.

He emphasized that this rule “either Kommersant or something else” applies to all employees. Zhelonkin denies that the journalist’s dismissal is related to her publications about Alexander Beglov.

Two Kommersant journalists anonymously told Vedomosti that this was the first time they had heard that maintaining Telegram channels was somehow limited for publishing house employees.