“Even if we were to publish pictures of Putin receiving suitcases of money at the Kremlin door, no one would care.”
ROMAN SHLEINOV
Novaya GazetaThe Wall Street Journal is carrying a really excellent piece on Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the paper that employed, amongst others, Anna Politkovskaya. It deals with two problems for journalists in Russia. One is getting killed for speaking out in public. The other is being ignored.

Back in October, John Lloyd wrote this about the Russian media:

Russian television is now feel-good television – the programming reflecting the sense, at least among the growing middle classes, that life is becoming ever more materially richer.

In that atmosphere, public consciences like that of Anna Politkovskaya attract at least indifference and irritation – at worst, the fate that met her in the hall of her flat block [Guardian]

Indifference and irritation – they’re not the natural components of virtù, but they are familiar. We have them too, but we have been indifferent far longer.