Kevin Rothrock

''Meduza'' ( rus, Медуза, t=jellyfish) is a Russian- and English-language independent news website, headquartered in Riga. It was founded in 2014 by a group of former employees of the then-independent ''Lenta.ru'' news website. Free mobile applications for iOS, Windows Phone and Android became the basis of the media.

A semi-official motto of the portal is "Make the Kremlin sad".

History

In 2014, Galina Timchenko was fired from her job as chief editor at ''Lenta.ru'' by oligarch Alexander Mamut, a supporter of Vladimir Putin, after she had interviewed Right Sector. She launched the new webpage ''Meduza'' in October 2014. Several former journalists of ''Lenta.ru'' joined the new online site.

Timchenko told ''Forbes'' that the decision to base ''Meduza'' in Latvia was made since "right now, establishing an independent Russian language publishing house in Latvia is possible, while in Russia it is not". Moreover, Timchenko stated: "We understood that in Russia, most likely, they would not let us work."

Russian businessman and former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and telecommunications magnate Boris Zimin had been considered as passive investors, but they parted ways "for strategic and operational reasons". For financial reasons, Timchenko and her partner at Amond & Smith Ltd, Sergey Nazarkin, based Meduza in Latvia.

In February 2015, the website also launched an English-language version. In January 2016, founder and CEO Galina Timchenko handed over the role of chief editor to her deputy Ivan Kolpakov.

In August 2017, ''Meduza'' started a partnership with the American news website '' BuzzFeed News''. The partnership included publishing each other’s materials, sharing experiences, and carrying out and publishing joint investigations.

On October 20, 2018, at the outlet's annual celebration, ''Meduza'' chief editor and co-founder Ivan Kolpakov reportedly groped an employee's wife, saying, "You're the only one at this party I can harass and get away with it." Kolpakov was temporarily suspended until ''Meduza'' publicly censured and reinstated him. The incident triggered a social media backfire. On November 9 Kolpakov announced his resignation saying that "it is the only way to stop the crisis engulfing the website and minimize the damage to its reputation". He was reinstated as chief editor on March 11, 2019.

In 2019, ''Meduza'' started the English podcast The Naked Pravda, which highlights how ''Meduza'''s top reporting intersects with the wider research and expertise that exists about Russia.

''Meduza'' published an editorial condemning the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022; due to its coverage of the invasion, the site was blocked on the territory of Russia by Roskomnadzor among other news websites due to the "systematic dissemination of fakes". Actions of the Russian authorities from 2021 caused financial difficulties for Meduza, as it stopped many advertisers from Russia, which were the portal's main source of income, from displying their ads at Medusa's pages. This resulted in an international campaign to collect funds to ensure Medusa's survival through donations and buying subscriptions. On March 11, Reporters Without Borders announced a mirror site has been set up.

Structure

By 2014 ''Meduza'' had a team of around 20 journalists. No Latvian journalists contribute to the project.

Since March 2015, Meduza has published a daily news called “Evening Meduza”.

In September 2022, it announced the creation of English email dispatch 'The Beet', aiming to amplify "local perspectives" from Central/Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, "without centering Moscow".

Audience

Three months after opening, Meduza had 1.3 million monthly readers of its Internet publication. In 2017, Meduza had 7.5 million readers per month and 2 million followers on social media. In 2020, Meduza was the leader in social media citations in the rating compiled by , a company that monitors and analyzes media and social networks.

Meduza grants open source access to all they coverage of the war in Ukraine under a Creative Commons license. The articles can be reprinted in full (CC BY 4.0, does not apply to photos).

Censorship

''Meduza'' aims to fill a market niche that exists due to "a long list of forbidden topics which Russian media do not raise for various reasons—due to direct and indirect censorship".

The day after it was launched, ''Meduza'' was blocked in Kazakhstan, probably due to an article about the city of Oskemen (Ust-Kamenogorsk).

Access to the site has also been blocked in Uzbekistan.

Meduza has installed technical measures to circumvent censorship with their mobile apps.

In June 2019, ''Meduza'' journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested by Russian police for claimed drug offences. Colleagues and friends of Golunov said they believed the charges to be fabricated, motivated by his investigations into corruption. Following a public outcry, Golunov was released, and five police officers were fired and later arrested.

On April 23, 2021, the Russian Ministry of Justice designated ''Meduza'' as a "foreign agent". In response, the European Union rejected the decision, saying this restriction "goes against Russia's international obligations and human rights commitments".

''Meduza'' condemned the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine; as a reaction, the site has been blocked on the territory of Russia by Roskomnadzor. Russian journalist Ilya Krasilshchik, the former publisher of ''Meduza'', was charged under the "fake news" law for denouncing the war in Ukraine.

See also

* Novaya Gazeta
* Segodnya

References

External links

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* https://meduza.io/en/
* https://meduza.global.ssl.fastly.net/en Fastly Mirror site
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* {{Google Play, io.meduza.meduza, Meduza

''Meduza''
on Medium

2014 establishments in Latvia
Internet properties established in 2014
Mass media in Riga
Multilingual websites
Russian news websites
Russian-language mass media in Latvia
Bilingual newspapers
Media listed in Russia as foreign agents
Meduza
Russian-language websites