Journalism Is Not A Crime

The front page of a newspaper is supposed to be jam-packed with critical information, summarizing the most important events in a typically chaotic day. So imagine the surprise the 555,000 readers of the Wall Street Journal, the most circulated newspaper in the U.S., felt when presented with a largely-blank front page on the paper’s Friday, March 29 issue. 

“HIS STORY SHOULD BE HERE,” the headline read in large, bold letters, accompanied on the left by an illustration of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter. 

Last Friday marked the one-year anniversary of Gershkovich’s detainment by Russian authorities while working in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, and the events following his unlawful detention are nothing short of a tragedy. 365 days later, Gershkovich remains behind Russian bars.  While Russian authorities claimed he was arrested for espionage, they have yet to provide a scrap of evidence supporting this allegation. 

Rather, to these Russian officials, Gershkovich’s crime was journalism itself.  

Back in January 2022, Gershkovich, an American journalist born to Soviet immigrants, joined the Journal—approximately one month prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to his colleagues, Gershkovich was thrilled by the prospect of covering Russia for the Journal, and threw himself into researching both the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. Upon finding a career within the Journal’s outlet in Moscow, Gershkovich’s reporting took him across what was formerly the Soviet Union; while stationed on the Ukraine-Belarus border, he was the first American reporter to see the wounded Russian soldiers being evacuated from the conflict in Ukraine. 

Gershkovich’s reporting exemplifies the true importance the media continues to hold—especially in authoritarian countries such as Russia, in which propaganda and state media remain the only source of domestic news. Only through independent, unbiased journalists like Gershkovich that people might receive accurate reporting. Now that misinformation spreads without precedent, impartial members of the press remain an even more essential outlet to the truth for those living outside of falsehoods and regimes. However, because of his commitment to unbiased reporting, Gershkovich soon drew the attention of Russian authorities.  

On one assignment, multiple Russian security officials trailed Gershkovich, tracking his movements by camera and pressuring sources not to speak with him. Further, while in the western region of Pskov, Gershkovich was followed and filmed by unidentified men. However, this was just the prelude to the nightmare that Gershkovich would soon find himself in. 

On March 29, 2023, Gershkovich would have been preparing for a trip to Berlin with several of his closest colleagues. The “Airbnb” had been booked, Travel plans and itineraries set. 

But the trip would never happen.

Late in the evening, while at a restaurant in Yekaterinburg, a city known for being both an industrial and freight transportation hub, Gershkovich was detained by Russian authorities; they alleged that Gershkovich, “acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.” Which activity and which enterprise they were referring to, however, remain a mystery to everyone else, including Gershkovich himself. 

Gershkovich is the first U.S. journalist to be detained by Russia on allegations of espionage since the Cold War, and just under two weeks later, the U.S. State Department designated Gershkovich as having been wrongfully detained and launched a campaign to pressure Russia into freeing him to no avail. Since being imprisoned, Gershkovich’s lawyers appealed their client’s imprisonment time and time again, yet despite the evidence (or rather, lack thereof) that Russian authorities failed to bring forth justifying his detainment, Gershkovich remains behind bars. Further, Russia recently extended his detention sentence for a fifth time, and as of the most current ruling, the earliest Gershkovich will go to trial is June 30, and he currently faces up to 20 years in prison 

However, as unfortunate as it is, Gershkovich’s story is not the main story—instead, it defines the broader tension between Russia’s desire to control information and the West’s tradition of the free press.

Indeed, the even uglier truth behind Gershkovich’s detainment is that cases of journalists being unlawfully imprisoned are accelerating across the globe, because Gershkovich himself is just one recent example of the risks journalists take to report the truth. According to the Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, there currently are 520 journalists imprisoned worldwide, with the most (111) trapped in China. Crimes against members of the press have certainly not been limited to unlawful imprisonment or even threats of imprisonment, which have even forced many prominent journalists into exile. On too many occasions, journalists made the headlines not for their own groundbreaking work but their deaths in the line of duty. 

One of the first examples to come to mind is former Journal reporter and South Asia Bureau Chief, Daniel Pearl: In 2002, Pearl, while based in Mumbai India, was en route to an interview in Pakistan when he was kidnapped by a group of terrorists with links to Al-Qaeda. Pearl’s captors held him for a week before beheading him and broadcasting his execution.  Even more disturbing was the punishment—or lack of it—the killers received: in 2021, Pakistan’s highest court freed the man accused of killing Pearl. Similarly, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered by a team of Saudi agents inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Khashoggi had been a contributor to the Washington Post, where he criticized the Saudi Arabian government, and it is believed that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, personally ordered his demise.

These stories only highlight the injustices and risks that members of the press continue to face. It is imperative to journalists’ safety that we increase their protection, especially if they work in countries known to be unwelcoming to the media. The press plays the most vital of roles in such countries, as it is journalists who remain the world’s only channel to the truth. 

Even when not evading authoritarian governments, journalists continue to face dangers in the line of reporting. Covering the world’s violent conflicts is just one example: "according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 95 journalists have died in Gaza, comprising an estimated 75% of journalists killed last year, with deaths from this conflict alone comprising an estimated 75% of journalists killed last year. 

Returning to Gershkovich, it is essential that the U.S. government does everything in its power to bring him home. In the words of Journal Moscow Bureau chief Ann Simmon, “Evan Gershkovich is not a spy. He is a talented, resourceful, dedicated professional journalist.” 

Indeed, the world must do more to protect the rights of journalists.

We must do it for journalists such as Gershkovich, who remain behind bars for their dedication to reporting the truth, and for media martyrs such as Pearl and Khashoggi, who have suffered the ultimate consequence for their commitment to their careers.

We must do it for the colleagues of such journalists, who are surely reminded by every reporting trip abroad that they, too, could be imprisoned, threatened, or killed just for doing their jobs. 

Above all, we must improve the rights of journalists to take a stand against the discrimination members of the media continue to face for their dedication to reporting the truth. The world needs journalists. But this cannot remain an unrequited transaction—journalists need the world’s support.

To conclude with this article’s headline, echoed by Kristen Welker’s ending words on the March 31 airing of NBC’s flagship weekly news program Meet the Press, concerning Gershkovich: “Journalism is not a crime,” and must never be allowed to become one.