Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia from Lenin to Putin

by James Rodgers

Overview

The story of western correspondents in Russia is the story of Russia's attitude to the west. Russia has at different times been alternately open to western ideas and contacts, cautious and distant or, for much of the twentieth century, all but closed off. From the revolutionary period of the First World War onwards, correspondents in Russia have striven to tell the story of a country known to few outsiders. Their stories have not always been well received by political elites, audiences, and even editors in their own countries-but their accounts have been a huge influence on how the West understands Russia. Not always perfect, at times downright misleading, they have, overall, been immensely valuable.
In Assignment Moscow, former foreign correspondent James Rodgers analyses the news coverage of Russia throughout history, from the coverage of the siege of the Winter Palace and a plot to kill Stalin, to the Chernobyl explosion and the Salisbury poison scandal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780755601158
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/23/2020
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.44(w) x 9.37(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

James Rodgers was a Foreign Correspondent in Moscow, Brussels and Gaza, working for BBC and Reuters. Since 2012, James has taught Jourbanalism at City, University of London, where he lectures in the History of Jourbanalism, and the Reporting of Armed Conflict.

Table of Contents

List of Figures viii

Acknowledgements ix

Foreword Martin Sixsmith xii

Introduction 1

1 Sympathies in the struggle: Reporting Russia in revolution, 1917 7

2 "The press is lying, or does not know': Russia goes to war with itself 29

3 From 'A wild and barbarous country' via starvation to Stalinism 53

4 Believe everything but the facts 79

5 But what a story everything tells here: The Great Patriotic War 95

6 Secrets, censorship and cocktails with the Central Committee 115

7 A window on the country: Reporting reform and ruin 131

8 'Free for all': The Yeltsin era 151

9 Becoming strong again? 171

10 Russia: My History 189

Notes 199

Bibliography 226

Index 232

Editorial Reviews

Assignment Moscow exposes how the Moscow correspondent has had to adapt to multiple manifestations of censorship, or compete with state-run media, the severity of which has ebbed and flowed with changes in regime.” —History Today

“Reporting from Russia has never been easy; Rodgers vividly captures the changing fortunes of Moscow correspondents over the past hundred years, as they penetrated the mysteries of life in Russia and brought them to our newspapers and screens. Some were duped, some were fellow-travellers or spies; most battled against censors and blank-faced politicians; all have helped to shape our understanding of the world's biggest country.” —Angus Roxburgh, former Moscow correspondent for the BBC, Sunday Times and Economist

“Writing about jourbanalism in Russia since the revolution, James Rodgers rightly emphasises that to understand Russia you have to talk to people of all kinds. But he argues that even correspondents who knew the language and the history found it hard to report dispassionately because of official obstruction and their own emotional involvement.” —Rodric Braithwaite

“A highly original, engrossing and accessible book, Assignment Moscow stands out among jourbanalistic accounts of Russia for its subtlety, humility and historic scope. It tells the story of British and American jourbanalists who aimed to throw light on Russia from Lenin to Putin, and in the process illuminated the West itself.” —Arkady Ostrovsky, Author of The Invention of Russia: The Rise of Putin and the age of Fake News, Winner of the 2016 Orwell Prize

“It is hard to believe that in the torrent of books published on Russia each year, that one could come along as original and valuable as Assignment Moscow. One comes to appreciate the service of our reporting men and women in Moscow. For all their fallibilities, without their dedication, we wouldn't have half the understanding of Russia that we have today, imperfect as it will always be. We therefore owe them – and especially Rodgers as jourbanalist, teacher, analyst and cataloguer – a huge debt.” —James Nixey, Chatham House

From the Publisher