We all criticize bad media outlets, and we all want there to be more good ones. Or at the very least, we want the good ones that already exist not to die off or deteriorate.
Unfortunately, in Russia, as in any authoritarian country, this is not a matter of the market, or even of a newsroom’s quality or effort. In a sense, quite the opposite. The better your journalism is, the harder it is to survive.
For a good investigative outlet, the situation looks like this: if you want to survive, don’t make a good product. As a reader, I find that rule of life deeply discouraging. I think you do too.
That is why I wholeheartedly support the few media outlets that survive in spite of this rule and break it.
I’m very happy to take part in the fundraising campaign for the outlet *Proekt*. It is an excellent investigative media organization—one of the very best, and I say that as someone who reads all the investigations that come out (well, almost all of them).
Good journalism costs money. Not a huge amount, really, but it cannot exist without some funding. And the choice here is simple: either we help and they survive, or we do nothing and there is one fewer good media outlet.
I’m for the first option, so I’m going here—and I urge everyone else to do the same.