UCLA International Institute, April 1, 2016 — “The Russian Internet is making a transition from one of the most free to one of the most regulated in the world, but they didn’t build a Chinese wall yet,” said Ilia Krasil’shchik, publisher of the online Russian-language media outlet Meduza (https://meduza.io; also available in English, https://meduza.io.en).
Speaking at a UCLA Center for European & Russian Studies event on March 31, 2016, Krasil’shchik described the work of Meduza, an Internet-only published news media outlet created by a group of young Russian journalists a year and a half ago in Riga, Latvia.
Many of Meduza’s founding editors and journalists previously worked for Lenta.ru, once considered the “Russian New York Times” in Krasil’shchik’s words. Its editor-in-chief, Galina Timchenko, was fired by the owner in 2014 following critical coverage of Russia’s seizure of the Crimea from Ukraine. The entire editorial staff left in solidarity with Timchenko. Krasil’shchik, who did not work for Lenta.ru, threw his lot in with a group of its former editors and journalists to create Meduza. Timchenko is the new outlet’s general director.
The group sought to quickly create a new kind of Russian online news outlet that was bulletproof (i.e., it could neither be successfully blocked on the Internet nor closed down). A team of 20 young journalists, editors, designers and developers moved to Latvia and literally built their office themselves (after traveling to Poland to purchase office furniture at IKEA).
“We’re not in media exile, but we understand that this is a bad moment to launch a new media outlet in Russia,” said Krasil’shchik. The people who work for Meduza, he said, want Russia to have an independent media. “We’re against isolationism — it’s the main threat,” he added. “The world is not Russia — the world is much bigger.”
The outlet seeks to publish everywhere — the Internet, via smart phone applications, other websites, email, etc. — so that it cannot be easily blocked. “The blocking problem is huge for us. We need to use every platform we can,” said Krasil’shchik.
Meduza: News with a sardonic twist
Meduza publishes news, investigative journalism (two of its investigative journalists have received the Russian GQ prize for journalism), “explanatory journalism,” as well as news games. Krasil’shchik noted that the need to verify information was urgent for media outlets worldwide. Last year, Meduza launched a new service that assigns three categories to information: information that has a proven source, information that needs to be proven, and information that Meduza believes is doubtful and is waiting to deny.
Humor is a core principle of the outlet’s approach. “You can’t always be serious, you need to laugh sometimes,” said Krasil’shchik. “The news in Russia is always bad. So if I’m in a good mood now, do I ask, ‘How can I make it worse? I’ll go to Meduza.’ — No one would read us then!”
Among the 50 or so new games featured on its website, one concerns dictators — each of whom is portrayed on his own playing card. A player is encouraged to beat the program’s choice of a dictator with another who received an even larger percentage of the electoral vote during his most recent election. Another game allows players to help Putin (who is perennially late to meetings with foreign leaders) be on time for his meeting with the Pope. “If you are too serious and don’t treat readers how they want to be treated, you can’t fight against propaganda,” said the speaker. “I don’t think the objective of the media is to fight propaganda, but we can be objective. “
Meduza is committed to meeting its readers where they are. And according to its publisher, “Russian people don’t understand the news. You need to explain everything.” Reporting on the attacks on the French publication Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, for example, required explaining the history of political caricatures in France.
The outlet has designed its own short question-and-answer feature to ask questions that readers might be ashamed to ask (e.g., how does the global economy work? what is the Syrian civil war about? how do U.S. presidential primaries work?). The short-format feature allows a reader to continue to select additional questions on a given topic so that he or she can continue to their level of interest.
“If people don’t understand, it’s not their problem. It’s the media’s problem,” said Krasil’shchik. The short-format feature is not exclusively devoted to complex issues, however. It also addresses fun and practical topics, such as how to make a perfect omelet or how to get to Kiev when flights are banned.
After a year-and-a-half in existence, Meduza’s staff has doubled in size —from 20 to 40 (some of whom work in Russia) and the outlet has acquired an impressive readership. As of March 2016, its website had 4 million unique visitors per month, 300,000 of its smart phone applications had been downloaded; 400,000 people subscribed to Meduza notices delivered via their web browsers, 450,000 people followed its Twitter feed, and 45,000 subscribers receive daily news delivered to their email addresses. “It’s 100 percent organic growth,” he said, “as we have no money for marketing.”
Without a doubt, Meduza is reaching the young generation in Russia. According to Krasil’shchik, 70 percent of its audience is under 35 years of age and lives in big cities. Although most of those cities are in Russia, 10 percent of the Meduza audience lives in Ukraine and regular readers include people in countries around the world.