An independent Russian TV station and its staff made a mass walkout while live on-air after being shut down over their coverage of the Ukraine invasion.
Dozhd channel was shut down after the country’s TV regulator accused the channel of ‘inciting extremism, abusing Russian citizens, causing mass disruption of public calm and safety and encouraging protests’, according to the report.
Bloomberg News and the BBC said their correspondents in Russia could no longer freely report because of the new censorship law signed by Mr. Putin on Friday, which effectively criminalized independent journalism on the invasion of Ukraine. Under the legislation, which could take effect as early as Saturday, journalists who simply describe the war as a “war” could be sentenced to prison.
Watch it here: Hindustan Times/Youtube
Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief, John Micklethwait, wrote in a note to staff “The change to the criminal code, which seems designed to turn any independent reporter into a criminal purely by association, makes it impossible to continue any semblance of normal journalism inside the country.”
The program was ended by one of the presenters who said “This was the last news bulletin in the season shall we say. We hope very much that we will resume broadcasting. How, where, and on what platforms, we don’t know yet how that’s going to be.”
Another presenter also adds “So I think we should end our broadcast on that note, and a little pause which TV Dozhd is doing. No pasaran [they shall not pass].”
Before the first presenter then finally says: “And no to war.”
Fox News also reported:
TV Rain CEO Natalya Sindeeva issued a statement that the news organization would “temporarily suspend its work” after Russian authorities accused TV Rain of reporting “false information regarding the actions of Russian military personnel as part of a special operation” in Ukraine.
“We need strength to exhale and understand how to work further. We really hope that we will return to the air and continue our work,” Sindeeva said.
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal body responsible for overseeing media, has urged all news outlets to only use “trustworthy sources” when it comes to reporting on the invasion of Ukraine.
“What they mean by that is Russian government sources,” intelligence expert and national security commentator Rebekah Koffler told Fox News Digital.
Russians have to rely largely on state-run outlets for television coverage of the war as a result.
Sources: The Gateway Pundit, Fox News, INews, The New York Times, Yahoo News UK, Daily Mail
too bad we can’t imprison the CNN and MSNBC staff for their LYING constantly and all those who wrongly claim that the vax is safe!