#9
From: Matt Taibbi <exile.taibbi@matrix.ru>
Subject: Stringer
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001
The editor of Stringer, Leonid Krutakov, was last week forced to resign. I don't know all the particulars of the incident but it was clear to me and to all of the other Stringer writers that his firing was based at least in part in dissatisfaction in certain quarters with the paper's anti-government politics. The new paper, if it continues to exist at all, will apparently be significantly tamer than the old one, and certain of the old contributors will be excluded. I encourage journalists reading the JRL who are interested in free press issues to contact Stringer and investigate the incident, and for those readers who have complaints about the firing to write to stringer@stringer-agency.ru. You may also contact me at taibbi@exile.ru.
I never wrote into the JRL about the eXile's problems, but I consider Leonid's problems at Stringer a real free speech issue and would hope that they attract some attention. His Stringer was one of the last papers in Russian that freely criticized and investigated the Putin regime and its sponsors.