Masha Gessen writes:

Around noon every workday, Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, sits down at the head of a long table in a large round room in the paper’s office, in Moscow, to chair a planyorka, or planning meeting. On October 11th, the Monday after the Friday when the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that it was awarding this year’s Peace Prize to Muratov and the Filipina journalist Maria Ressa, ten people gathered at the table, joined by fifteen on Zoom, to discuss how to spend Muratov’s half of the $1.15 million in prize money. Muratov had told the media that he saw the Nobel as a prize for everyone at the paper, that he wouldn’t take a kopeck for himself, that the entire amount would go to charity, and that he wouldn’t choose the charities unilaterally. After some discussion, members of the editorial staff settled on several priorities, including helping children with spinal muscular atrophy (a condition that the paper had been covering for more than a year); launching a supportive-housing program for mentally disabled adults living in institutions (Novaya Gazeta published an exposé about such institutions last spring); donating to Moscow-area hospices; and aiding independent Russian media outlets that Vladimir Putin’s government had recently hobbled by branding them “foreign agents.”

After the meeting, Muratov and a longtime friend, the politician Grigory Yavlinsky, celebrated the Nobel with schnitzel, mashed potatoes, and vodka at the Novaya Gazeta cafeteria. The lunch squeezed our interview, which bumped into Muratov’s next appointment. Still in his office ten minutes past his scheduled departure time, jacket on and bag in hand, Muratov asked me, “Do you want some whiskey? People have been congratulating me and bringing a lot of alcohol. This looks like it would be good.” He poured us two snifters. He refilled them. As we drank, he issued instructions to his assistant, Olga: “Tell them I’m leaving”; “Let’s say I’m stuck in traffic.” After an hour, Olga announced that she would make no more excuses. Novaya Gazeta, a registered nonprofit, depends primarily on donations, and Muratov had a meeting with a donor. “I have to go, since I’ve already given away all the prize money,” he said.

According to the Nobel committee’s citation, Muratov and Ressa—the C.E.O. and co-founder of Rappler, a digital newspaper in Manila—received the prize “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” Under Muratov’s leadership, Novaya Gazeta has survived for nearly thirty years, longer than virtually any other independent media outlet in Russia. It publishes a print issue three times a week (the October 11th issue—the first one after the Nobel—featured Ressa on the cover), with a press run of ninety thousand, and releases a constant stream of online articles, videos, and podcasts; its Web site draws about half a million unique visitors per day, and about nine million per month. Novaya Gazeta is known for its conflict reporting, particularly from Chechnya and eastern Ukraine, and its investigations: it was the Russian partner in the international consortium of journalists that mined the Panama Papers, which exposed the offshore bank accounts linked to many world leaders and their allies, including close associates of Putin. But most people probably think of Novaya Gazeta first as the publication that lost six journalists and contributors to murder between 2000 and 2009. The newspaper and its staff operate in a near-constant state of emergency, always under threat and often on the verge of folding. [Continue reading…]