Russian news agency fires editor, loses entire staff

The head of a major Russian regional news agency unusually critical of the local authorities was fired on Friday in what she called the result of official pressure on editorial policy.

The board of directors of Ura.Ru, a news agency in Russia's Urals region based in Yekaterinburg, "fired me from the post of director and agency's chief editor," Aksana Panova said.

Panova's staff of 30 left with her to start a new project, she said, however the project's future was unclear as it has no legal status.

The decision was rooted in the Sverdlovsk region's pressure to change the editorial policy of the agency, said Panova, who is facing a barrage of allegations from regional investigators.
"There are four criminal probes against me, and six more in production," she said. "I go in for questioning on a nearly daily basis."

Police raided the agency in late September as part of what they said was a probe into a theft from Ura.Ru's account, something Panova dismissed.

Since then, the investigators accused Panova of extortion, saying she blackmailed people about whom the agency wrote critically for money.

"The main thing that Ura.Ru had was its unbending, clowning, restless spirit. That made many people dislike us," said a good-bye message published by Ura.Ru on Thursday after seven years of existence.

"Regional elites have more to gain from a calm, unchallenging information atmosphere," it said. "But while stability is being built, someone has to talk about... who gets the construction contracts."
The website of Ura.Ru is not being updated since Thursday evening.

The popular agency which covered seven regions in the Urals frequently published stories on corruption and interviewed Russia's opposition leaders, an unusual feat in the country where most regional papers are owned by the government.

It earned few allies among officials when it openly allied with the chief of a local cold-turkey drug rehab Evgeny Roizman, a one-time maverick Russian MP who has also crossed swords with the region's authorities.

Panova said her team is launching another web portal called Znak.com next week, but the future of the project is unclear. "We don't have a legal entity yet, and we are not registered as media," she admitted.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/206507" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b755e8308c1d3df314d7a89969177cf0" value="form-b755e8308c1d3df314d7a89969177cf0" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80061883" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.