Alexander Malkevich. IMAGE: Sputnik / Alexei Filippov
Last week, the FBI briefly detained and questioned USA Really head Alexander Malkevich at Washington airport after his trip to cover the midterm elections in the US.
Besides his work in USA Really, Malkevich, a member of the Russian Civic Chamber, was an observer during the November 6 elections in the US state of Maryland. On November 8, he stated that he had been “deeply shocked” by the scale of violations in states ruled by Democrats. Malkevich was detained at Washington airport on November 9. The agents searched Malkevich’s luggage and questioned him for around half an hour. According to Russian media outlets, Malkevich described the questioning as “funny” especially the part, in which the FBI wondered if he was a Russian military intelligence agent.
Attempt to pressure independent media outlets violate the concept of media freedom and free speech. On the other hand, the FBI actions could be explained by the fact that the name of the media headed by Malkevich includes the name of the state – “USA” and focuses on covering the US internal politics, but provides no info about its residency (or any other legal info).
According to the USA Really website, it is “a nonprofit media organization dedicated to journalistic accuracy and integrity, providing a voice for ignored and underserved communities, highlighting the best of humanity and delivering local, people-centered coverage on the issues you care about.” MORE HERE
Additionally, the design, including the logo, of USA Really looks similar to a big Russian-language news agency, Riafan.
USA Really homepage:
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Riafan homepage:
Click to see the full-size image
SouthFront believes that an independent and diversified coverage of complex developments around the world can contribute to the stabilization of the international relations. At the same time, independent media outlets have to balance between naked facts and their one-sided analysis and explanations from the one side and attempts to gain attention of the mainstream audience from the other side. This fact is actively used by power circles, which seek to limit the freedom of speech and to turn the media space into an eye-catching display of controlled narratives.
