Meduza

Latvian bilingual online newspaper

Meduza (Russian: Медуза, named after the Greek goddess Medusa) is a Russian and English language independent news website, headquartered in Riga, Latvia. It was founded in 2014 by a group of former employees of the then independent Lenta. ru news website. Free mobile applications for iOS, Windows Phone, and Android became the basis of the media. A semi official motto of the portal is "Make the Kremlin sad".

In 2014, Galina Timchenko was fired from her job as chief editor at Lenta. ru by oligarch Alexander Mamut, a supporter of Vladimir Putin, after she had interviewed Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh. She launched the new webpage Meduza in October 2014. Moreover, Timchenko stated: "We understood that in Russia, most likely, they would not let us work." Russian businessman and former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and telecommunications magnate Boris Zimin had been considered as passive investors, but they parted ways "for strategic and operational reasons". In February 2015, the website also launched an English language version. In January 2016, Timchenko handed over the role of chief editor to her deputy Ivan Kolpakov. In August 2017, Meduza started a partnership with the American news website BuzzFeed News. The partnership included publishing each other's materials, sharing experiences, and carrying out and publishing joint investigations. On October 20, 2018, at the outlet's annual celebration, Meduza chief editor and co founder Ivan Kolpakov reportedly groped an employee's wife, saying, "You're the only one at this party I can harass and get away with it." Kolpakov was temporarily suspended until Meduza publicly censured and reinstated him. The incident triggered a social media backlash. On November 9 Kolpakov announced his resignation saying that "it is the only way to stop the crisis engulfing the website and minimize the damage to its reputation". He was reinstated as chief editor on March 11, 2019. In May 2022, Helsingin Sanomat started publishing individual Meduza articles translated in Finnish. In February 2023, Timchenko's iPhone was targeted with Pegasus spyware. The attack occurred a day before a conference of exiled independent Russian media that was held in Berlin and which Timchenko attended; her phone could have been used to eavesdrop on the journalists' conversations during the conference. This attack is the first confirmed instance of Pegasus being used against a Russian journalist. It is unclear which state carried out the attack. Several employees of other independent Russian outlets, Current Time TV and Novaya Gazeta, received notifications from Apple that "state sponsored attackers" may have attacked their phones as well. Its debut article was titled 'Suing Gorbachev' and explored Soviet violence in the Baltic states under Mikhail Gorbachev.

Three months after opening, Meduza had 1.3 million monthly readers of its Internet publication. In 2017, Meduza had 7.5 million readers per month and 2 million followers on social media. In 2020, Meduza was the leading Russian site in social media links, according to , a company that monitors and analyzes exclusivity Russian sites on media and social networks. By March 2022, Meduzas website had between 12 and 18 million monthly visitors.

Meduza aims to fill a market niche that exists due to "a long list of forbidden topics which Russian media do not raise for various reasons—due to direct and indirect censorship". Meduza has installed technical measures to circumvent censorship with their mobile apps. In June 2019, Meduza journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested by Russian police for claimed drug offences. Colleagues and friends of Golunov said they believed the charges to be fabricated, motivated by his investigations into corruption. Following a public outcry, Golunov was released, and five police officers were fired and later arrested. On 23 April 2021, the Russian Ministry of Justice designated Meduza as a "foreign agent". In response, the European Union rejected the decision, saying this restriction "goes against Russia's international obligations and human rights commitments". Russia's actions caused financial difficulties for Meduza, as they stopped many advertisers from Russia, which were the portal's main source of income, from displaying their ads at Meduzas pages. This resulted in an international campaign to collect funds to ensure Meduzas survival through donations and buying subscriptions. Timchenko said the designation made it even harder to obtain sources that are willing to talk to the reporters – specifically without the protection of anonymity. due to its coverage of the invasion, the site was blocked on the territory of Russia by Roskomnadzor among other news websites due to the "systematic dissemination of fakes". Despite the actions of Roskomnadzor, Meduza managed to maintain most of its Russian readers, but the economic sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine also hit Meduzas finances, as the sanctions made it nearly impossible to send donations from Russia and 30,000 members across the Russian border were suddenly unable to donate to the website. As a result, Meduza launched a campaign seeking donations from new supporters outside of Russia. On March 11, Reporters Without Borders announced a mirror site has been set up. Russian journalist Ilya Krasilshchik, the former publisher of Meduza, was charged under the "fake news" law for denouncing the war in Ukraine. On 26 January 2023, the Russian prosecutor general’s office designated Meduza as an "undesirable organization" in Russia. In March 2023, Timchenko said that while "Russian propaganda has enormous financial sources" and the government can spend billions to spread disinformation, Meduza has a "little crowdfunding campaign by people of good will around the world, and some support from international organizations".