Read the interview with the now former editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of Esquire:
Dmitry Golubovsky: “In My Case, There’s No Politics Involved”
There are lots of interesting details. For example, it turns out a prosecutor once came to their newsroom to give them an official “explanation” about calls to action (i.e., public appeals or incitement). I didn’t know that:
It also talks about how everything worked there. About profitability. I never really understood why *Esquire* was so profitable compared with everyone else, either. Golubovsky says their founders didn’t really understand it much themselves.
We’ll see what becomes of the “new” *Esquire*, but the “old” one definitely deserves respect (sounds awful, I know).
We worked with them a couple of times on stories about corruption (VTB and government procurement), as mentioned in the interview, and we really liked how deeply they got into everything: send this over, send that over, let’s add this. They took all the documents and clearly read them carefully, which, unfortunately, doesn’t happen all that often with journalists.
And thanks as well for “Rules of Life” — it was the longest interview of my life, conducted by no fewer than three people, but on the plus side, now I can just put a link in the “about me” section: http://esquire.ru/wil/alexey-navalny