"We have good covers"

The chief editor of the "interlocutor" - about how to put on the first lane of Navalny, remaining in Russia

The weekly newspaper "Interlocutor" is the main phenomenon of Russian media in recent years. Materials with criticism of the Russian authorities and Vladimir Putin personally come out in it, political prisoners appear on its covers, including Alexei Navalny. During the war, the circulations of the “interlocutor” were withdrawn several times, Roskomnadzor blocked the publication’s website, but the newspaper continues to be released, and its journalists remain in Russia. The editor of Kholoda Maxim conspiration talked with the editor -in -chief of the interlocutor Oleg Roldugin about how it is all possible.

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We are talking to you immediately after the editorial planner of the "interlocutor". What was discussed on it?

- First of all, a flood in the Orenburg region. In my opinion, it is very sparingly served in the media, although this is a huge tragedy and disaster. Moreover, the dam, which broke through, was built recently.

We plan a report on how people survive there, about how and why they feel abandoned. After all, the protest shares have already gone, and if people in the regions go to protest, then they have already been very much brought. But still: after all, we hear from the state media that the locals themselves are to blame for this disaster, and together with the mice, which allegedly sprinkled a whole dam.

We also discussed the heading "Person" - our reversal, central interviews. We have two materials for her: with Stanislav Belkovsky and Olga Romanova. Again " foreign agents ", by the way.

When was the last time you “wrapped” the topic, let it and interesting to you, because it is too dangerous to write about it?

- Yes, it happens. Now we have an interview with Lilia Chanysheva , which we did by correspondence. Well, we hold it, we took a break, because before that we had several materials about Navalny resonant, and questions may arise: "What are you giving so many FBK ?"

I now have a rustled strip about a large mother-single mother who was in the Finmonitoring list as a person finances extremists. She has blocked accounts, and she needs to somehow feed and treat children. I would like to release, but I understand that it is necessary to somehow work out the text so that there is no suspicion that we sympathize with extremism . So that no one accuses us of this.

Well, not only I wrap the materials. Recently, the lead editor refused to publish a historical article on how Hitler came to power. “Not to my number,” he says. Although the text is purely historical, and I do not see what allusions may arise here. But still - some are afraid. Someone is afraid to write about Chechnya , for example.

It also happens that the materials do not come out, because the heroes themselves refuse to talk with us, because they believe that it will be dangerous for us. Several times I personally persuaded Dima Bykov to give an interview-he is afraid that there will be problems because of this publication. The same story with Boris Akunin. But in the case of Khodorkovsky, I myself am already afraid - I don’t know whether it is possible to publish an interview with him now in the Russian edition.

And how do you understand what is possible and what is not?

- It all depends on the case and specific people. We do not know at all that this controling organs will hit the head. It seems to me that in Russia everything is now being done by mood and depends on the individual preferences of that particular person who is on duty at a particular moment. And we, it turns out, as if we play roulette.

You now, it seems, have described the work of the Russian media of the 2010s: there seems to be risks, but you can try. Something is better to hold, to give something accurately. For a long time, almost everyone worked like that, and then introduced military censorship and everything changed fundamentally. And you, it turns out, has not changed?

- So I do not take military topics. In principle, no one even offers them, since there are two options: either to print a press release from the Ministry of Defense, or to go under an article about “fakes”. Still, probably, you can quote all kinds of " military commissures ", but it is also not very clear with them. What you can "military commander" is no longer possible. Most of them, it seems, do not use the phrase “special military operation”.

Otherwise, we really stayed somewhere in the 2010s. And the work methodology does not change. What to release, we decide together on a glider. There is no such thing that the editor-in-chief goes down.

Horizontal edition. Very progressive

- Absolutely. If they do not support me, then I'm wrong. Honestly, I generally regret that it so happened that I became the editor -in -chief. I have very little time left to do what I like - actually journalism.

Maybe the editor -in -chief is not quite mine. In this position, a manager needs more, especially in those conditions that have now developed. Our main problem is not the development of topics, but the issue of survival.

Today, one of the deputies literally came to me and says: "We must somehow earn." Here is a “new newspaper” some auctions. And from us from what you can sell-only the picture of Mikhail Shemyakin alone, which he once gave. You can’t earn much on it.

How does the interlocutor live now?

- Only through the sale of newspapers, we no longer have advertising. Subscription and retail sale. And then - last week I watched the kiosks: in many kiosks we are no longer sold in Moscow. But they sell somewhere. True, it's burnt. Here is the “Russian newspaper”, it seems, 19 rubles costs - such a newspaper. And ours, small - 81 rubles. This is in Moscow, and in Sakhalin or in Yakutia - in general 200. We, I think, is the most expensive newspaper in the country. On the one hand, it’s sad - not everyone can afford, on the other hand, good - apparently, there is a demand.

What is the circulation of the "interlocutor" now?

- About 100-140 thousand.

Who are your readers? Who are these 100 thousand?

- Mostly people from the regions, from the hinterland. We have good distribution by subscription, through the "Russian Post", which sells us where there are no newspaper kiosks.

These are people over 50 years old. Now, however, a noticeable rejuvenation has occurred, the lower border - about 35 years.

Why do they need a paper newspaper?

- It is then that she is paper. Because it can be held in your hands. Let me give you an example: you noticed that money from a bank card is spent faster than cash?

Perhaps.

- Because with what you hold in your hands is more difficult to part. Or here is the famous experiment with a diesel locomotive (better known as “The problem of the trolley.” - approx. “Cold”). Here is a rudette, on some ways 10 people, on others - one. Where to direct the locomotive? Of course, to where one - everyone answers like that. And if the path is one, 10 people lie on it, but you can push one one who will stop the locomotive with his body, what to do? Almost no one replies that he is ready to push a person with your own hands. Because it is tactile contact.

With newspapers - the same thing. On the Internet you can read much more than in the "interlocutor", but in our case there is an opportunity to touch this information.

So you said that we are a newspaper from the 2010s. So we are also an opportunity to touch the 2010s. Return to the past. To understand that this is not a ghost, that it was, that it was something real.

We do not make a newspaper - we sell a sense of return to the recent past. And maybe for someone-this is not a ghost of the past, but hope for the future.

Crosswords and recipes that you are printing - is this also about touching the past?

- Crosswords need political prisoners who read us in the colonies. They asked them to leave them, because for them it is an opportunity to somehow strain the brains. And recipes - yes, this is about the past.

Recipes are not even the 2010s, but probably the 2000s or 1990s. We thought to remove them, but then we decided to leave them as the very element of the happy past that gives us hope.

Do you feel that you are working almost without competitors in Russia?

- Yes, I feel, but we cannot use this. It would seem that there is no competition - take it and use the market. But the problem is that as soon as we become noticeable as soon as we start talking about us, a repressive mechanism is immediately turned on, which does not allow us to use this situation.

It sounds bad. It turns out that in order to continue to work normally - you must work poorly and not attract any attention to yourself.

- Yes. There were materials that I put exclusively on the site, and not in the newspaper, fearing that the newspaper would be closed because of this. For example, an article about Putin's bunkers. The text itself was practically written in the spring of 2022. And I released it for nine months and only on the network. And then he doubted whether it was worth it to even put it on the Internet.

In the last issue, the material about the apartments of Colonel Zakharchenko, which went to the Russian Guard, was released - so he also had been lying from me since 2022, although the investigation is a strong, in a normal situation, the editor -in -chief is interested in putting it as early as possible.

Even now I am talking to you and do not know how it will be perceived. Maybe someone will decide that this conversation is already discrediting something. Perhaps the very fact of our existence is already discrediting.

Continuing to competition or its absence. Are you fighting for the audience with other newspapers - “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “arguments and facts”?

- No, there is quite much sense in this. You see, the publications that you mentioned also have financial problems, but a slightly different nature. They never had as much money as now. People are littered with money from different grants, from different funds and everything else, which must be mastered.

They can afford anything and do not have time to master. Accordingly, we cannot compete with them, because we have different starting positions. “Komsomolskaya Pravda” is two times thicker than us, three times cheaper and it comes out every day - well, what kind of competition is there.

And you do not serve these grants or do not give you?

“They don’t give us, but we don’t go away anymore.” Previously submitted and received. For example, from the presidential administration for materials about the fight against corruption. Moreover, we made an investigation about what was happening in the presidential administration itself - and we received money from them. I was still surprised how possible, but now it is no longer possible.

The last grant we had was to children's publications. But children's publications in our country are not priority compared to patriotic, so the grant did not even cover the cost of release. It was impossible to exist, and we closed them.

Do you consider independent, emigrant media to your competitors? Here is the "cold", for example, a competitor to the "interlocutor"?

- Absolutely not. You exist in the online space. And we have the entire production process in the newspaper. We, with rare exceptions, as with the same Putin bunkers, we don’t lay out anything on the site except that it comes out on paper, and we do not lay out before it comes out on paper, let it already be outdated.

But there is no jealousy for journalists who have left and have the opportunity to write about anything, calling everything their names? Do they not enrage you? I'm talking about the same "conflict of those who left and remain."

- No. Sometimes you envy, of course, kindly, and sometimes you sympathize. I understand how they left, I understand that they do not live there at all. I understand how difficult it is and psychologically and financially.

In my opinion, thanks to online publications, Russian journalism is experiencing almost the Golden Age. Just the real revolution has occurred in the last five years. I do not remember so many quality materials, investigations, reports.

Why don't you want to join this? Spit on paper and all the encumbrances associated with it, go online, or even try to leave with the whole editorial office?

- When the site was blocked in the spring of 2022 and the circulations of three numbers were seized, we discussed whether the newspaper should be released further at all. And yes, they considered the option of leaving online.

But for us, the care of the online will mean the closure of the newspaper. And maybe we do not have such a grand number of readers, but we have them, and they perceive our newspaper as some hope, as a sip of air, as freedom. And depriving people of all this, and of their own free will, would be dishonest.

Therefore, we will stay to the last in the format in which we are now leaving.

How do you feel about the idea that, without being in Russia, it is impossible to engage in journalism about Russia?

- I absolutely disagree. Yes, some nerve is certainly lost. But we, and being in Russia, sometimes find ourselves in a similar situation. For example, we have

There is no money to send a person on a business trip to Orsk. We will make the material remotely. And this does not mean that we cannot do it.

Of course, the place would be better, although, you know, by no means always the presence in place guarantees quality. Sometimes the distance allows you to more objectively assess the situation.

Everyone has their own difficulties. But almost all investigative journalism has now left, and it is easier to engage in it abroad - this is just a fact. If all these people were in Russia, we would not have such a number of investigators and investigations as now.

Do you take students to practice?

- Yes, they come.

You ask them, why did they go to the journalism factory in the 2020s? What do they want to learn, where to work?

-The last time I asked about this from the girl-practical, she answered about Glamor. At the same time, it seems to me that the idea of ​​journalism as a glamorous life and communication with the stars has become much less common. All students want to engage in serious topics, investigations.

Navalny's films, of course, played a big role in this. Young people realized that it was much cooler than running after Buzova with a microphone and waiting for her to say another something great.

It’s just not very clear whether it is worth learning investigations at the journalism faculty of Moscow State University.

- Don't know. At one time there was a strong school, then in the "High" there was a very strong school, from where many beautiful journalists of the young came out.

Now both there and there, as far as I know, the teaching staff is seriously cleaned. And some serious things are difficult to do. But it’s hard for me to say that I myself do not have a journalistic education. I finished the Pystfak and I do not regret it. We were taught that a historian is not the one who knows the dates, numbers and surnames, but the one who knows how to analyze events. This is what we do in the newspaper.

Are the “interlocutor” team of approximately the same views and values?

- Absolutely different.

And what do people with other political views think about your covers?

- So we have good covers.

But completely unambiguous. When you put on the cover of Navalny or Medvedev, the editors' attitude to these figures is clear.

-Well, yes, to Medvedev, everyone, in my opinion, has an unambiguous attitude. Both the patriots and those who call themselves patriots, and those who do not call themselves patriots.

But Navalny! After all, an employee of the editorial office who supports Putin can say: "This is the enemy!" And someone will say: “Look at the mainstream Russian media, for them the death of Navalny is not an event, where are we going?”

- No, we are a weekly newspaper. We look at the covers of the world media and see that all of them are Navalny. And we put it on the cover not because we like it or do not like it - although by and large I like it - but because this is really the most important informational occasion.

If we simply put it on the first lane for no reason, just like that - well, we could say that this is strange. But at that moment ( after the death of Navalny in the colony. - Approx. “Cold” ) no one had any questions.

In the nearest issue, we will obviously be a flood on our cover. Because it is a pain point.

Were there journalists who quit political reasons after February 2022?

- No, there were those who quit for personal reasons, but they worked for a long time. They supported Putin, I mean, and worked in the "interlocutor". This is fine. I believe that different views are not something so prohibitive. Different views should be the norm. We are all people, we all have different views, we just need to find a common language.

I believe that the main problem now is a rejection of dissent. The point is not that there are “patriots”, but there are “liberals”. The fact is that if you think differently today, then you are automatically considered an enemy. And thinking differently is normal.

In February 2024, the "interlocutor" turned 40 years old. Somehow noted?

- celebrated. We had a red cake, in the colors of the newspaper logo. Modestly enough, but the last time we celebrated the 30th anniversary in a wide foot. In 2014, when nothing still began.

Then we celebrated the President-Hotel. There were many official guests: Seleznev, Zhirinovsky, a bunch of singers. There was a wide celebration. But then we somehow did not rejoice in everything that began to happen in the country, and, accordingly, received a blow to advertising. Then we were raised a rent by several times, because of which we had to move from a four-story building-to several rooms.

And we celebrated the 40th anniversary in a small room in the dining room, and almost everyone fired there. But it was sincere. We sat, talked.

What did you want to each other?

- Work further. With wishes, everything was very simple.