Losing Pravda
Ethics and The Press in Post-Truth Russia

The story of the spectacular unravelling of journalism as a profession in Russia in the last thirty years.

Natalia Roudakova (Author)

9781107171121, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 September 2017

274 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.55 kg

'Changes in Russia's press are vital to understanding the global media climate of today. … the book offers a thoughtful and useful discussion of how truth can slowly be erased from public discourse. Highly Recommended.' J. R. Clardie, Choice

What happens when journalism is made superfluous? Combining ethnography, media analysis, moral and political theory this book examines the unravelling of professional journalism in Russia over the past twenty-five years, and its effects on society. It argues that, contrary to widespread assumptions, late Soviet-era journalists shared a cultural contract with their audiences, which ensured that their work was guided by a truth-telling ethic. Post-communist economic and political upheaval led not so much to greater press freedom as to the de-professionalization of journalism, as journalists found themselves having to monetize their truth-seeking skills. This has culminated in a perception of journalists as political prostitutes, or members of the 'second oldest profession', as they are commonly termed in Russia. Roudakova argues that this cultural shift has fundamentally eroded the value of truth-seeking and telling in Russian society.

Introduction
1. Ethics and politics in Soviet journalism
2. Journalism and capitalism: the first encounter
3. From the fourth estate to the second oldest profession
4. The spiral of cynicism in the 2000s
5. Trying a life without irony in the early 2010s
Conclusion
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]