Information in Russia, public and private, can be almost as powerful a commodity as oil and gas, and the media, of course, is the main information pipeline. Although Russian journalists have the latitude to write and publish what they want, the biggest threat to them comes afterwards, as it is virtually impossible for the state to guarantee freedom from retribution for their stories, and in some cases, it is precisely elements within the state that they need protection from. Because of this dilemma and the still underdeveloped media market that it is expected to rely on, the Russian media is like a servant torn between several temperamental and oppressive masters.

The current situation is rooted in the Soviet experience and most of all in the political and economic crises of the 1990s. With the Soviet collapse, much of the media was cut loose from state domination, but at the same time lost state funding. During the last half of the 1990s the financial vulnerability of the Russian media was exploited by politicized capital that was trying to gain an edge. This era culminated in 1997 when the media was overrun by information wars between financial-industrial groups. The “oligarchs” had accumulated control over television and newspapers, and after securing Yeltsin’s second term, they used their media holdings to wage war against one another in the struggle to accumulate political and economic power. Shortly afterwards, in December of 1997, Gazprom’s ever-expanding media holding company was formed.

Since taking office, the Putin administration has been trying to consolidate power. And the television media is among its crown jewels. The siege of NTV and ORT in Putin’s first term was ostensibly a response to what scholars have called the “mediazation of politics,” which was characteristic of the Yeltsin era. Gaining control over the information pipeline makes sense to a government that has been vulnerable to the media’s power for the past decade.

Today, though national television is for the most part under direct or indirect state ownership, the status of the newspaper industry is more ambiguous. The Putin administration has made it clear that it consider the press to be of little consequence. The business press is held to be the most objective due to their financial security, funded in part as they often are by foreign corporations, or structured as joint ventures and partnerships. These profit-oriented firms realize the need to gain market share through credibility. Still, Paul Klebnikov, the editor of Forbes Russia, was shot and killed outside his office in a 2004 contract killing ostensibly connected to his work.

The political media is under more scrutiny, and has less stability and more politicized financing. Politkovskaya was a journalist at Novaya Gazeta, one of the papers most openly and vehemently critical of the regime. The ones with the most independence have benefactors who fund their operations. Most other papers tend to be rather subdued – to the point of silence – in their coverage of corruption, Chechnya, and human rights abuses.

The Russian media is understandably shaken but will ultimately change little. Politkovskaya, in both her life and her death, was the exception to the rule. Most Russian journalists will be unlikely to change their practices as a result of her murder; they are journalists, and not, ultimately, human rights activists or symbols. How much changed in the wake of Klebnikov’s murder in 2004, or after the murder of popular television personality Vlad Listyev in 1994? In the end, much will depend on the approach journalists take towards their work and the dangers they encounter.