Russia Web Journalism Award Named For Edward Snowden

[Luminous Animal]

45. Aleksei Venediktov Receives The Artyom Borovik Award from the Overseas Press Club

Aleksei Venediktov is one of Russia's best known journalists and a staunch defender of free speech. He serves as editor-in-chief of the national radio station Echo of Moscow (Ekho Moskvi), and as the host of several of its programs. The station is one of the few in Russia that provides independent news and openly criticizes government officials and policy. Venediktov can often be heard on the air, posing the hard questions that few others dare to ask. Ekho Moskvi as an organization and Venediktov as a person represent everything that Artyom Borovik stood for in his short life — courage, boldness and the importance of questioning authority. Venediktov's Ekho Moskvi is and has always been one of the few shining points in the very dark world of Russian media.

https://www.opcofamerica.org/awards/artyom-borovik-award-2007

The letter that the Overseas Press Club sent to Russian officials in 2009 after Vedediktov received a death threat:

Your Excellencies:
Members of the Overseas Press Club of America are both alarmed and indignant at the news that Aleksei Venediktov, editor of the independent radio station, Ekho Moskvy, has received a not-so-veiled threat to his life. According to our colleagues at the Committee to Protect Journalists, on the evening of February 4, Venediktov found an axe stuck into a log by the door of his apartment. A videocamera had been left nearby.

This incident would be serious enough at any time in any country. It takes on added weight in Russia today in light of the fact that at least twenty three journalists have been murdered in Russia since 2000, when Vladimir Putin came to power; only three weeks ago, Anastasia Baburova of Novaya Gazeta was shot by an assassin in broad daylight on a street in downtown
Moscow.

Ekho Moskvy is the most outspokenly independent radio station in Russia, and has often come under fire from your government. In 2007 alone, the station received some fifteen official complaints, including a demand that it explain why it had interviewed Garry Kasparov, then an opposition candidate. As our club said last year in honoring Venediktov with its Artyom Borovik Award, "Ekho Moskvi as an organization and Venediktov as a person represent . . . courage, boldness and the importance of questioning authority. Venediktov's Ekho Moskvi is and has always been one of the few shining points in the very dark world of Russian media."

We call on Your Excellencies to order a real and thorough investigation of this attempt to intimidate the station and its editor, and to prove your frequently repeated commitment to press freedom by bringing the perpetrators to justice.
Thank you for your attention. We would appreciate a reply.

Respectfully yours,
Larry Martz
Co-chairman, Freedom of the Press Committee

https://www.opcofamerica.org/news/russia-february-9-2009

Putin consider Venediktov and enemy

In 2001, Putin invited Aleksei Venediktov to a meeting in the Kremlin library. By way of both embracing him and warning him about how he understood their relationship, the Russian President talked at length about the difference between enemies and traitors. “It’s a crucial distinction for Putin,” Venediktov said. “He said, ‘Enemies are right in front of you, you are at war with them, then you make an armistice with them, and all is clear. A traitor must be destroyed, crushed.’ This is his philosophy of the world. And then he said, ‘You know, Aleksei, you are not a traitor. You are an enemy.’ ”

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/22/080922fa_fact_remnick


And I never claimed that Venediktov's resignation had anything to do with Snowden.