Formal codes of ethics for journalists are rare in Russia. Yet in recent months, guidelines on how to behave have swept the rank and file of Moscow’s journalists; and the increasing attention to how Russian journalists should (and should not) act on social media is at odds with the profession’s taste for macabre humour.
Even the funeral of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov on Tuesday at the Sakharov Center didn’t prevent Lesya Ryabtseva, a journalist at the popular radio station Ekho Moskvy, from quipping at the deceased’s expense on Twitter (‘Nemtsov and Novodvorskaya meet @ the Sakharov Center …’). Ryabtseva, a close aide of Ekho’s editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov, was making a reference to Valeriya Novodvorskaya, a prominent activist in Russia’s liberal camp who died in July 2014, and for whom a ceremony was held at Moscow’s Sakharov Center.
As the Twittersphere erupted, the irony of Ryabtseva’s poor attempt at humour is that, only a few months ago, she was charged with developing a code of ethics for Ekho after another scandal broke out last November.
