🇺🇸 The Jailed Journalist

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RUSSIA

The Jailed Journalist

Late last month, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested by Russian authorities, who have accused him of espionage. The newspaper has denied this claim, and the US State Department has unsuccessfully attempted to secure the 31-year-old reporter’s release.

Reporting from The Left: An inside look at Russia's notorious prison where American reporter is being held (CNN)

Reporting from The Right: Evan Gershkovich declared 'unlawfully detained' as Biden admin goes on 'full-court press' for his release (Fox News)

From The Flag: Gershkovich, who graduated from Princeton High School in New Jersey, speaks fluent Russian – his parents fled the Soviet Union in the late 1970s before meeting in Detroit. His colleagues describe him as a determined journalist dedicated to reporting on Russia. Here’s more from both sides.

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

A Brave Reporter Gets Caught Up in Putin’s Desperate Schemes

• Where Putin sees a spy, the rest of us see a reporter following the hallowed tradition of risking it all to get the story.

• If Putin had actually read some of Gershkovich’s reporting, it would have been to his benefit.

• Putin, potentially emboldened by President Biden’s response to a drowned drone, decided to escalate with this arrest.

“Evan Gershkovich Is Not a Spy” Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal Opinion: “The best journalists are and always have been professionals who are simply trying to locate the truth, and tell it. … (Gershkovich) did his job in danger, as all reporters in Moscow do, operating under harsh press laws since the Ukraine war. … (He’s) the first American reporter to be so charged since the Cold War. He is not in a regular prison but an FSB prison, meaning he’s subject to greater isolation. I didn’t know him but know his work, which is enterprising and perceptive. Also varied: He covered everything from Siberian forest fires to Vladimir Putin’s relative isolation to the war’s economic toll. Everyone knows he isn’t a spy. He is a journalist who is now a state hostage, held, it is generally assumed, for some future trade down the road. But maybe not: You never know with Mr. Putin.”

“Putin Should Have Read Evan Gershkovich, Not Imprisoned Him” Bret Stephens, New York Times: “​​Had the Russian president read Gershkovich’s reporting over the past year, he might have read a story or two that would have pleased him, like one from last summer about young Russians largely ignoring the war. (That was before a partial draft sent many Russians fleeing to Dubai, Bali and even a remote Alaskan island.) Yet Putin would also have learned, thanks to Gershkovich’s solo reporting in Belarus in the earliest days of the war, that the war was not ‘going to plan,’ in contrast to what Russia’s defense minister kept telling him. He would have learned how utterly incompetent his war machine is, thanks to an inside account from a Russian paratrooper who participated in the invasion and later fled to France. He would have learned that despite last year’s energy-revenue windfalls, Russia’s economy is coming undone under Western sanctions.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: Forget Russia's spy fiction, here's why US reporter Evan Gershkovich was likely arrested Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Putin’s Return To Cold War Era Tactics Beyond the Pale

• Gershkovich is the first US journalist imprisoned by Russia since the Cold War, after he bravely volunteered to work there.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has learned well from his Soviet predecessors, as evidenced by this move.

• Let’s put Tucker Carlson’s naïve Russophilia to good use by dispatching him to Moscow to negotiate the Gershkovich case.

“My friend Evan Gershkovich is no spy. Just a brave reporter jailed in Moscow” Pjotr Sauer, The Guardian Opinion: “After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Evan had bravely volunteered to return to Russia, a country that he had reported on for years, to show how it was changing in the wake of an unjust war. He did not think that he would be arrested. But he was also never naive about the risks that he was facing. … A fluent Russian speaker… he left a comfortable job at the New York Times to fulfill his longtime dream of working as a reporter in Moscow. He wanted to be on the ground, he told me later, ‘where the action happens’. … Like many journalists, Evan left Russia following the outbreak of the Ukraine war, temporarily settling in London. But, over the summer, he went back. … he felt it was his professional duty to report on arguably the biggest story of our generation.”

“The Arrest of Evan Gershkovich Is Further Evidence of Putin’s Brutality” Editorial Board, New York Times: “Russia has a rich history of imprisoning people on bogus charges for no purpose other than to help keep a dictator in power. … In his drive to consolidate power, silence opposition and lash out at the West, Vladimir Putin has drawn on many of the techniques of the Soviet secret police in which he was reared. … An accomplished and widely respected journalist, Mr. Gershkovich was seized by the FSB., the Russian successor to the Soviet KGB, in Yekaterinburg on March 29 and has been accused — with no evidence provided — of espionage, a grave charge that carries a prison term of up to 20 years. It was last known to be used against an American reporter in the Soviet era, in 1986, when Nicholas Daniloff of US News & World Report was arrested and accused of the same charge, which he denied.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: Send Tucker Carlson to Moscow Jack Shafer, Politico

FLAG THIS

4 in 10 Want More Done for Gershkovich

Polling data released last week shows 41% think the US government “should do more” to secure the release of Gershkovich.

By comparison, 23% said the same thing about WNBA star Brittney Griner after she was arrested for possession of hashish oil last year.

Similarly, 49% of respondents said Gershkovich is being “treated unfairly,” compared to 31% who said the same thing about Griner following her arrest.

Along party lines, 53% of Republicans and 37% of Democrats say the US government should be doing more to get Gershkovich released (YouGov).

FLAG FINDS

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