Meduza

Meduza
Web address meduza.io
Slogan The news returns
Commercial? Yes
Type of site
 News aggregator
Online newspaper
Registration No
Available in Russian
English
Editor Galina Timchenko
Launched October 20, 2014
Alexa rank

4,677

(January 2015)[1]
Current status Active

Meduza is a Riga-based online newspaper and news aggregator in Russian language, headed by Galina Timchenko, the former editor-in-chief of Russian news website Lenta.ru.

Conception

Meduza is an aggregator of news and texts in Russian, to be selected in manual mode, unlike the automatic rankings of Yandex News. The main criterion for the published content should be the relevance and reliability of the information, not the status of the source.[2] Also, Meduza will create its own materials. The site includes 5 main topics, no sections and columns. One of the formats of the publication will be the analysis of complex issues using cards, similar to the American project vox.com. The basis of the media will be free mobile app[3] for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

In February 2015, the website also launched a version in the English language.

Censorship

Meduza is run by a team of around 20 journalists who resigned from their jobs at Lenta.ru following Timchenko’s unexpected removal from her post by the website’s owner and Vladimir Putin ally, the oligarch Alexander Mamut. There are no Latvian journalists in the project.

Timchenko told Forbes that the decision to base Meduza in Latvia was made due to the reason that "it is possible to establish an independent publishing house in Latvia, while in Russia it is impossible." At the same time, Meduza's location may be explained by economic reasons. In an interview,[4] the editor confirmed that Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russian businessman and former oligarch had been considered as a passive investor; however, they parted ways “for strategic and operational reasons”. She refused to name any current investors: “Their names would not be familiar to anyone. These are strictly non-public people who have nothing to do with the media or politics.”

On the second day Meduza was launched, the portal was blocked[5] in Kazakhstan probably due to article[6] about the city of Oskemen (Ust-Kamenogorsk).

References

  1. ↑ "meduza.io Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-10-24.
  2. ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/23/russian-journalists-meduza-project-latvia-kremlin-crackdown
  3. ↑ http://izvestia.ru/news/575816
  4. ↑ http://www.forbes.ru/kompanii/internet-telekom-i-media/267611-galina-timchenko-nikto-iz-nas-ne-mechtaet-delat-kolokol
  5. ↑ http://tjournal.ru/paper/meduza-kaznet
  6. ↑ https://meduza.io/news/2014/10/20/ust-kamenogorskaya-narodnaya-respublika

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Meduza.