Meduza

Meduza
Type of site
 News aggregator
Online newspaper
Available in Russian
English
Headquarters Riga, Latvia
Editor Ivan Kolpakov
Industry Journalism
Website Russian: meduza.io
English: meduza.io/en
Alexa rank

Rise 2,329

(March 2018)[1]
Commercial Yes
Registration No
Launched October 20, 2014
Current status Active

Meduza is a Riga-based online newspaper and news aggregator in the Russian language, headed by Galina Timchenko, the former editor-in-chief of Russian news website Lenta.ru.

Conception

Meduza is an aggregator of news and texts in Russian, to be selected in manual mode, unlike the automatic rankings of Yandex News. The main criterion for the published content should be the relevance and reliability of the information, not the status of the source.[2] Also, Meduza creates its own materials. The site includes 5 main topics, no sections and columns. One of the formats of the publication is the analysis of complex issues using cards, similar to the American project vox.com.

In February 2015, the website also launched a version in the English language. In January 2016, founder and CEO Galina Timchenko handed over the role of chief editor to her deputy Ivan Kolpakov.[3]

Structure

Meduza is run by a team of around 20 journalists who resigned from their jobs at Lenta.ru following Galina Timchenko’s unexpected removal from her post by the website’s owner and Vladimir Putin ally, the oligarch Alexander Mamut. There are no Latvian journalists in the project.

Timchenko told Forbes that the decision to base Meduza in Latvia was made since "right now, establishing an independent Russian language publishing house in Latvia is possible, while in Russia it is not."[4] Russian businessman and former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and telecommunications magnate Boris Zimin had been considered as passive investors; however, they parted ways “for strategic and operational reasons”.[4]

On 3 September 2018, RT reported that the 2017 Latvian financial statements of Meduza Project SIA reveal that it received grants of an undisclosed amount from the OAK Foundation and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. It also reported that Russian State Duma deputies believe that on the basis of this information, the news agency could be subject to the Russian foreign agent media law. The report emphasized those agencies' connections to billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundations, which have been banned in Russia since 2015. Meduza's profit for the year 2017 was €976, with debts of over €1.4 million.[5]

Censorship

According to Timchenko, Meduza will not only serve as an aggregator, but also produce its own content. Thus, it aims to fill a market niche which exists due to "a long list of forbidden topics which Russian media do not raise for various reasons – due to direct and indirect censorship."[4]

On the second day Meduza was launched, the portal was blocked[6] in Kazakhstan probably due to article[7] about the city of Oskemen (Ust-Kamenogorsk).

The site has also been blocked in Uzbekistan.[8] The reasons for this are unclear.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "meduza.io Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2018-03-10.
  2. ↑ Beard, Nadia (23 October 2014). "Russian journalists set up shop in Latvia after Kremlin crackdown". Retrieved 11 July 2017 – via The Guardian.
  3. ↑ Meduza chief editor steps down, remains as CEO, Meduza, January 28, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 "Галина Тимченко: "Никто из нас не мечтает делать «Колокол"". www.forbes.ru. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  5. ↑ Как стать иноагентом: RT впервые обнаружил иностранное финансирование «Медузы». 2018-09-03.
  6. ↑ Лихачёв, Никита (21 October 2014). "Издание Meduza заблокировали в Казахстане после репортажа из Усть-Каменогорска". Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  7. ↑ "Усть-Каменогорская народная республика: Ждут ли русские в Казахстане "вежливых людей": репортаж Ильи Азара — Meduza". Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  8. ↑ trim_c (2016-10-30). "Медуза идет впереди". trim_c. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
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