At a media seminar in Sweden in 2004, Anna Politkovskaya spoke in her quiet, intense way about her experiences covering Chechnya. Her conclusion was that the press had more freedom during the Soviet era than in Putin’s Russia. That was hard to believe. I don’t think many of the Westerners present wanted to believe it, either.

John Lloyd, who by the way attended the same seminar, writes about Politkovskaya’s relation to the Russian public. He comes close to sharing her diagnosis from two and a half years ago:

Politkovskaya was one sign – the largest – that Russian media had not returned to pre-Glasnost Soviet days. She could still publish and travel, unimaginable for a critic in Soviet times. But the mass media – above all television – has ceased to reflect oppositionist voices, and makes little attempt at objectivity. The state – or corporations tied to the state – controls all. The limits of comment are wider than under Communism, but have narrowed significantly, to the point where there are no really powerful, influential voices providing a balance to the Russian-nationalists, pro-Kremlin commentators and programme producers.

The photo is taken by Teppo in Helsinki on October 8, when people gathered in commemoration of Politkovskaya. Reproduced here courtesy of the Creative Commons license. Found by using the CC search tool.