Movie on slain Russian reporter shows journalism ‘under assault’ in Putin's Russia

By Chris Teale

Journalism is “under assault” and a second Trump term could be “devastating” for press freedom, panelists said following a Headliners screening Wednesday of "Anna," a movie about the life and death of independent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Politkovskaya survived poisoning, detention and beatings as she reported from Chechnya during the Second Chechen War, before ultimately being killed in her apartment building in 2006.

Journalists continue to face risk and reprisals as they report from wars and hostile environments, and on authoritarian regimes. But former CIA Director John Brennan said they also suffer under more democratic regimes from leaders that disparage journalism. That adds up, Brennan said, to a whole industry is “under assault.”

“If we don’t have a vibrant, independent, free press to be able to expose what is happening in the world, we are going to be beset by all the problems that we saw in this film,” Brennan said.

Politkovskaya is one of more than 1,800 journalists killed so far this century. Meanwhile, several journalists are currently held hostage abroad, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has spent nearly a year in prison in Moscow, and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), who was unlawfully detained in Kazan, Russia on Oct. 18.

“Before making this film, I wasn’t sure this was even an issue,” movie producer Mark Maxey said. It is slated for release later this year, and Maxey pledged to donate a portion of its proceeds to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Others behind the movie said journalism must be protected. Actor Sean Penn, its executive producer, said journalists are as “essential to all our freedoms as air.”

Washington Post editor Bob Woodward said that in the U.S., journalists "really do have those freedoms" still, and they have not been eroded yet, but Brennan and U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. said that freedoms journalists traditionally enjoy in the U.S. might be undermined or further eroded in a second Trump administration.

Swalwell warned that a Trump administration would be staffed by a “rogues’ gallery of yes men” who would not check Trump’s authoritarian tendencies.

A second Trump term would be “devastating” for America’s leadership role in the world, especially on the war in Ukraine, which has left lawmakers across the world “shaking their heads” and worried for the future, Brennan said. He also urged lawmakers in Congress to call out their colleagues who are intentionally spreading dis- and misinformation and warned that the use of artificial intelligence to fuel that could present “one of the challenges of our time.”

“They know what they’re saying is wrong,” Brennan said, referring to those elected officials. “They know that they are intentionally pushing out disinformation.”

Journalists will continue to face challenges both at home and overseas. Swalwell said those challenges prompted him to sponsor The Journalist Protection Act. Reporters, he said, should be a “protected class.” Brennan said journalists are the “pointy end of the spear,” and while authoritarians will try to use them as leverage, journalists must keep telling the truth.

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