Nightline tonight: Courageous investigative journalism ... in Russia

[Bozita]

I can't believe it.

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Murder in Moscow

Oct. 6, 2005

When Paul Klebnikov went to Russia as a reporter in 1992, he was a man on a mission.

He wanted to use investigative journalism to help his ancestral homeland reform itself into a nation of free markets, free politics and free speech, just like his homeland, the United States of America.

By 2004, Klebnikov was pursuing that vision as the editor of Forbes Russia, a successful new Moscow-based business newsmagazine. He was also pursuing several investigative stories, any one of which, people in Moscow told us, could have gotten him killed. The question, "Which one?" has been a painful mystery since Paul Klebnikov was murdered in July of 2004. Any attempt to answer it leads you in some of Russia's nastiest corners.

Producer Jay LaMonica and I went to Moscow to look at the Klebnikov murder, and with the help of The Committee to Protect Journalists (disclosure: I am a past chair and present member of the CPJ Board), we also gathered information about the murders of 11 other newspeople -- Russian journalists killed in the line of duty in Russia in the last five years.

Jay and I returned to America impressed by the sheer courage required to be an independent investigative reporter in Russia today. We think when you meet some of them on tonight's "Nightline," you'll be impressed, too, with them and their predicament.

At the elite end of the news profession in Russia, the dismissals of a continuing line of respected reporters, anchors and editors testify to a rule of thumb: Cross a red line, pay with your career. Farther from the spotlight of Moscow and its global news services and international human rights organizations, in the more typical world of local news and in provincial cities and towns where political and/or criminal organizations are less restrained, the rule of thumb is different: Cross a red line, pay with your life.

The Russian people, of course, also pay for this reign of terror. They rarely get to read, hear or see hard questions asked or questionable answers challenged, and thus they remain far from Paul Klebnikov's ideal of informed freedom.

Dave Marash and the "Nightline" staff
Correspondent
ABC News New York Bureau

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Hatfield. All those brave souls killed trying to tell the Iraq story.

How many in America in the last 5 years? (Names, names, I'm brain-dead right now.)
Ya don't need to go to Russia to find that story.