Former ‘Moscow Times’ chief editor criticizes newspaper's new ‘editorial line’

Mikhail Fishman, until recently the chief editor of The Moscow Times, is criticizing the newspaper’s new “editorial line,” following its move to a charitable foundation headed by Dutch businessman Derk Sauer and Russian entrepreneur Demyan Kudryavtsev.

“We were assured that the editorial line would remain intact,” Fishman wrote on Facebook this Thursday, drawing attention to an op-ed that appeared on July 12 by theater critic Alexander Kolesnikov defending the Bolshoi Theater’s controversial decision to cancel a ballet about Rudolf Nureyev. In the text, Kolesnikov takes wide aim at “liberal journalists” in Russia, saying many of them “are prepared to believe anything but the truth.”

Update: In a statement to Meduza, The Moscow Times defended Kolesnikov’s article, saying the newspaper “has a long tradition of presenting a wide variety of viewpoints in its opinion section,” describing the text as a counterpoint to Gordeyeva’s op-ed. Kolesnikov’s piece was “the opinion of a theater critic with personal knowledge of the production,” the newspaper says. “We're glad to see it has triggered debate — that's what the opinion section is for. Judging by our Web traffic, our readers agree.”

I hope this is a mistake, and not the newspaper’s new policy of “balancing different views.”

As Fishman points out in his Facebook post, The Moscow Times published Kolesnikov’s op-ed as a counterpoint to another opinion piece it shared that same day: a critical look at the ballet’s cancellation by journalist Yekaterina Gordeyeva.

In a tweet on July 13, Demyan Kudryavtsev argued that Kolesnikov wouldn’t have written what he did, if he’d seen the rehearsal footage of the ballet that leaked a day after the op-ed was published. “Otherwise he would have realized that the play was completely ready,” Kudryavtsev said.

Tatyana Kuznetsova, a theater critic for the newspaper Kommersant, came to this same conclusion.