RITA SKEETER, THE DAILY PROPHET POISON-PEN STORIES

Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on events.

The word journalism applies to the occupation, as well as citizen journalists who gather and publish information. Journalistic media include print, television, radio, Internet, and, in the past, newsreels. Concepts of the appropriate role for journalism vary between countries. In some nations, the news media are controlled by government intervention and are not fully independent. In others, the news media are independent of the government but instead operate as private industry motivated by profit. In addition to the varying nature of how media organizations are run and funded, countries may have differing implementations of laws handling the freedom of speech and libel cases.

George Orwell, the English novelist and essayist, journalist and critic, once said that In a Time of Universal Deceit. Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act.

We are living under exceptional measures and, of course, the first victim has been the truth. False information, misreported and fake news are always a problem although is more dangerous and unacceptable when these fakes are created and distributed by people who are supposed to work to protect the population.

It is not a problem located only in the Muggles' world but also in Hogwarts and because of this, today, The Grandma wants to talk about failing journalism in Hogwarts with the example of Rita Skeeter, a British witch and journalist who specialised in writing poison-pen stories, and The Daily Prophet, a wizarding newspaper based in London creator of misleading journalism -information that, while accurate in fact, leads readers to the wrong conclusion.

More information: Wizarding World

The Daily Prophet is a wizarding newspaper based in London, England. It is the primary source of news for British and Irish wizards. The current editor is Barnabas Cuffe, who works in the main office in Diagon Alley.

Because of its ability to influence the minds of many in the British and probably Irish wizarding community, the paper has been known to have its content slanted intentionally by the Ministry of Magic, which it has strong ties with, into telling the Ministry's preferred version of events. Unfortunately, the Prophet does not seem to have a lot of journalistic integrity, it has been known to be more concerned about sales than about factual accuracy.

The paper features a morning and evening edition, the latter of which is called the Evening Prophet. The weekend edition is called the Sunday Prophet. Additional news bulletins can be delivered quickly when important, newsworthy events occur. As news changes, an edition may magically change, too, over the course of the day, probably by means of a Protean Charm.

There is only one wizarding newspaper in Britain, discounting such small circulation publications such as The Quibbler.

The Daily Prophet, whose headquarters are in Diagon Alley, is delivered by owl on a daily basis to nearly every wizarding household in Britain. Payment is effected by placing coins in the pouch tied to the paper-owl's leg. Occasionally, when something particularly interesting or exciting happens, such as the illegal flight of a Ford Anglia the length of Britain, an Evening Prophet edition will be rushed out.

Subscriptions cost 1 Knut. This paper is delivered to professors and a few students at Hogwarts in the mornings, when the owl post arrives.

The Prophet is not the only publication in the Wizarding World, but it is almost certainly the most widely read. Stories in the Prophet often colour public opinion to a great amount.

When the Prophet published stories deriding Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore, most people in the Wizarding World believed what they read. The most widely read alternative newspaper in the wizarding world is The Quibbler.

More information: Wizarding World

While the Daily Prophet has been known to print facts, it has also had a somewhat negative reputation for being incredibly biassed, corrupt, and deceptive.

It is clear that, as there is strong government control of the newspaper, the facts can be misleading, if not outright fabrications, and that certain means of gathering information appear to be somewhat unethical. 

Government control of the Ministry is shown in the way that the Daily Prophet appears to pressure the government and go around official sources, and several people in Harry's circles feel that the Ministry of Magic leans heavily on Prophet.

In other instances, the Daily Prophet has misleading journalism -information that, while accurate in fact, leads readers to the wrong conclusion.

There are also occasions when the newspaper is seen to contain inaccurate or libellous content. It appears that there is little regard for accuracy in any form and there are no consequences or accountability for poor journalistic practises.

The Daily Prophet's unethical means of gathering information are most accurately seen with Rita Skeeter, a prominent but corrupt journalist who wrote with a complete disregard for accuracy, truthfulness and objectivity -often conducting interviews with a Quick Quotes Quill, a magical quill that writes automatically as the subject speaks. 

However, the quill does not record verbatim what the subject says. Instead, it takes a subject's words and creates sensational and inaccurate tales that bear little resemblance to actual events. In addition, Skeeter illegally turned herself into a beetle to spy on people and get personal information from them without being seen.

The Daily Prophet reports on everything going on the wizarding world, albeit not always in an unbiased way. In addition to news, the Daily Prophet includes a Magizoology column is run every Wednesday and a Quidditch section which features a boxed table of all the teams in the league, ranked by total number points scored, with forthcoming matches listed side by side. This section also includes articles on recent matches and other items of interest.

More information: The Daily Prophet

Wizardkind tends not to require alternative political flavours in its news coverage, which is not to say, however, that the Prophet does not have a political agenda.

As a small, outsider and occasionally beleaguered community, wizards are, by and large, interested in the same kinds of stories: whether anyone is in trouble for infractions of the International Statute of Secrecy, what irritating legislation the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office has come up with now, and when the next Celestina Warbeck/Weird Sisters concert will take place.

There is also an editorial section of the newspaper, where only few get responses, and are usually brief. The best letter is under the headline STAR LETTER.

A classified advertisements section is in the newspaper, with subheadings of JOBS, FOR SALE, and LONELY HEARTS. Birth and death notices also appear on this page. The advice section of the Prophet has a variety of experts in differing fields answer readers' questions.

Some topics covered in the past have been Medical Queries, Emotional Dilemmas, Legal Problems, and everyday magical problems.

Sometimes, the Daily Prophet has a fiendishly difficult crossword puzzle, and usually has a Magic lottery and a Magical Symbols Game.

The Daily Prophet also allows advertisements in their newspaper by businesses. some of these ads include: Nimbus brooms, clothing, Floo Powder accelerator, and O.W.L. crammers.

The Ministry also uses ad space in the Prophet. The Ministry posts various warnings, classes on advanced Defensive spells, and spells that can be used to safeguard your home.

The Evening Prophet was the name of the evening edition of the Daily Prophet. Presumably, this edition included different features, compared to the morning edition or Sunday Prophet.

Evening editions that are can apparently be delivered very quickly after an important story breaks. A witch or wizard anywhere in Britain can have a copy in hand within a short time of publication. For example, when Ron Weasley and Harry Potter were spotted by Muggles flying the Ford Anglia, Severus Snape had a copy of the hogwarts, story continued in his hand  after they arrived. One of the Muggles who spotted them was in Peebles, which is relatively close to Hogwarts, so the story couldn’t have been more than an hour old at that point.

The Sunday Prophet is the name of the weekend edition of the Daily Prophet. Presumably, this edition includes different features, compared to the daily edition.

More information: Screen Rant

The Daily Prophet has been producing papers since 1743, the year when it famously described Gideon Flatworthy, head of an extremist anti-Muggle group, as less a wizard, more a lazy walrus-like object who lies all day on a rather smelly cushion, and expects people to admire him for it.

The Daily Prophet covered the rise of Gellert Grindelwalds rise to power, questioning if then Minister for Magic Hector Flamboyant Fawley was doing enough and detailing the increased security measures taken at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

During the Ministry's campaign to discredit and slander Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter, the Prophet was an instrumental tool of the Ministry in their goal to convince the public that Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter were fear-mongering or simply mad.

The Ministry of Magic was responsible for the unfair journalism of that summer as Cornelius Fudge strove to discredit Dumbledore's account of the return of Voldemort.

Hermione subscribed to the paper to keep on top of the Ministry's agenda and see what the enemy was saying. Some people, such as Augusta Longbottom, cancelled their subscriptions due to believing in Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter over the Ministry.

Originally, Harry Potter kept getting his subscription only to skim through the front page for information about Voldemort's movements, as he was unaware of the Ministry's denial. Because of this he missed out on the slip-ins of him and Dumbledore being antagonised. Upon realising what was happening, Harry ceased his subscription.

After Fudge was forced to admit that Voldemort had returned, the Prophet changed its stance overnight, calling Harry a lone voice of truth. The newspaper even bought, from The Quibbler, Harry's interview on Voldemort's return and claimed it to be exclusive.

After the Battle of the Department of Mysteries and the Ministry was forced to accept the Rebirth of Lord Voldemort, the Daily Prophet reported on all the tragedy and terror affecting wizards and Muggles alike. This included reporting the murder of Amelia Bones and Emmeline Vance, the incorrect arrest of Stan Shunpike, and the arrest of Mundungus Fletcher for impersonating an Inferius.

When the Death Eaters took over the Ministry, they also took over the Daily Prophet, and subsequently they stopped reporting deaths that Death Eaters were responsible for. They also printed biassed, bogus news such as articles on Muggle-borns stealing magic from true wizards. As such, many resistance members turned to other programmes for news, such as Potterwatch and The Quibbler.

When Kingsley Shacklebolt became Minister for Magic, the Daily Prophet was de-corrupted.

More information: New Statesman

 

 

 The Prophet?

You deserved to be lied to if you're still reading that muck, Dirk. 

You want the facts, try The Quibbler.

Ted Tonks

 

Rita Skeeter is a British witch and journalist who specialised in writing poison-pen stories.

These stories tended to be based on false information and misreported interviews while she worked for the Daily Prophet, as well authoring a few tell-all biographies.

Skeeter was born into a half-blood or pure-blood family. Skeeter preferred writing for the sake of publicity and wrote what she thought people would like to read rather than what they ought to read and which was the truth. Rita's writing tended to be sensationalist and sometimes outright dishonest.

Albus Dumbledore described her writing as enchantingly nasty after she wrote an unfavourable article about him. Her ability to acquire information was assisted by her status as an unregistered beetle Animagus.

Notable stories Rita covered include the trials of various Death Eaters after the First Wizarding War, the Triwizard Tournament, and albeit reluctantly Harry Potter's account of Lord Voldemort's return to power for The Quibbler. She also wrote biographies of: Armando Dippet, Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, and Harry Potter. Her biography of Harry Potter for instance, is only one-quarter factual with the remaining three-quarters being pure fabrication.

Skeeter spent time training to become an Animagus and she was finally able to transform into a beetle at will. Skeeter aspired to be a journalist and an author, and used this ability to spy and eavesdrop for her articles.

During her early days as an author, Skeeter wrote a biography on Armando Dippet, entitled Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?. It was presumably an exaggerated history of him to gain controversy and by extension, popularity and fame. This book turned out to be a best-seller, with numerous copies sold. Also sometime in her early career, Skeeter provided a quote for the critical acclaim for Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp, when she wrote I've read worse as a review.

More information: Wizarding World

Rita was a guest speaker at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Prior to the reveal, the identity of the speaker generated quite a buzz throughout the school, with Rowan Khanna's guess being an Auror, the Minister for Magic, or a random Arithmancer, while Jacob's sibling thought to perhaps be the person Albus Dumbledore had been searching for throughout the school year.

Professor Minerva McGonagall introduced her to the school in the Great Hall, with Rita adding a bit more detail, stating herself to be a widely popular writer for the Daily Prophet.

She then gave a speech about the wizarding world being curious about the happenings within Hogwarts; Cursed Vaults aside, there apparently were talks about Hogwarts having the most promising assemblage of students in years, and that, in order to find out who the brightest student was, Professor Dumbledore had given the Prophet permission to observe and conduct a friendly competition, with the winner featuring on a front page article in the Prophet to start.

Rita then observed Potions, Transfiguration, Flying, and Charms classes, much to most of the instructors' annoyance. Following the Reappearance of the Dark Mark, Skeeter penned a scathing report of the British Ministry of Magic's handling over the riots, accusing the Ministry of incompetence over their failure to catch any of the culprits.

These articles particularly angered Arthur Weasley for her obviously biassed reporting, and he along with his son and fellow Ministry employee Percy Weasley had to head to the Ministry to help sort out the controversy, as she had mentioned Arthur in her article.

That year, Rita was given the opportunity to interview the Triwizard Tournament contestants for an article in the Daily Prophet. Under the guise of interviewing all four champions, she confronted Harry Potter in a broom cupboard where she took his ums and ers and invented her own quotes. Eventually, her interview of the contestants turned out to be a highly falsified story of Harry himself.

Harry Potter's story that Lord Voldemort had returned was not believed by much of the wizarding world, as the Daily Prophet portrayed him as either a delusional boy or an attention-seeking liar.

More information: Wizarding World

Rita was an unregistered Animagus, wherein she took the form of a beetle and was able to slip around undetected and spy on unsuspecting company so she could obtain gossip for her articles which she later exaggerated and exploited to gain the attention of the masses.

Her ability to turn into a beetle also reflected how irritating and bothersome she was to other people, particularly Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore, and it also displayed her dishonest and cunning characteristics.

Rita also wrote primarily for the Daily Prophet, though some of her articles have also appeared in other sources, such as Witch Weekly and The Quibbler.

Rita was extremely nosy and willing to do anything for a good story, from spying on people in her Animagus form of a beetle to sensationalising or outright inventing stories. She also took advantage in order to dig up dirt on the late Albus Dumbledore for her extremely critical biography. She did this despite the use of such a powerful truth serum being heavily controlled by the Ministry.

Rita tended to portray the people she wrote about poorly, presumably because it sold more stories.

Skeeter was described as having blonde hair set in elaborate curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jewelled spectacles studded with rhinestones, and had thick fingers ending in two-inch nails, painted crimson.

Her blonde curls were curiously rigid, suggesting it was styled with the magical equivalent of hairspray. In addition, she had penciled-on eyebrows and three gold teeth, as well as large, masculine hands. Her bright scarlet painted fingernails and toenails were usually likened to claws or talons.

She was known to carry with her a crocodile-skin handbag, inside of which she carried her acid green Quick-Quotes Quill. She usually wore magenta-coloured robes but also wore clothes of green leather with maroon furs at the collar and sleeves.

Apparently, unemployment did not serve Rita well, as when she showed up during the year she was blackmailed by Hermione Granger not to write, Rita's nails were chipped, she was missing fake stones in her glasses, and her hair was lank and unkempt.

As in her unregistered Animagus beetle form, her antennas were curled to resemble her curls in her hair and she had marking around her antennas resembling her jewelled glasses. 

Rita is a short form of the name Margarita, a Latinate form of the name Margaret. The name is derived from the Greek μαργαρίτης, margarites, meaning pearl.

Skeeter is a slang term for a mosquito. This could be a reference to her Animagus form, which is an insect, or to her career in tabloid journalism. The word paparazzi is derived from an Italian word for mosquito

Skeet is also an Anglo-Manx colloquialism for gossip or an act of nosiness. Skeeter could also be a pun off of how annoying Skeeter's lies tend to be, as people tend to find mosquitoes annoying and attempt to swat them away.

More information: Wizarding World

 

 

 Hello, I'm Rita Skeeter!

I write for the Daily Prophet.

But, of course, you know that, don't you?

It's you we don't know. You're the juicy news.

What quirks lurk beneath those rosy cheeks?

What mysteries do the muscles mask?

Does courage lie beneath those curls?

In short, what makes a champion tick?

Me, myself and I want to know.

Not to mention my ravid readers.

Rita Skeeter

DMITRY Y. KHOLODOV, JOURNALISM VS. CORRUPTION

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Dmitry Kholodov, the journalist who was assassinated on a day like today in 1994.

 

Dmitry Yuryevich Kholodov, in Russian Дми́трий Ю́рьевич Хо́лодов (21 July 1967-17 October 1994) was a Russian journalist who investigated corruption in the military and was assassinated on 17 October 1994 in Moscow.

Kholodov was born in Zagorsk (now Sergiyev Posad) on 21 June 1967. He studied physics.

Kholodov began his working life alongside his parents at the defence industry institute in Klimovsk in the Moscow Region. Faced by limited career prospects he turned to journalism, first working for the local radio. 

In 1992, he became a reporter with the national Moskovsky Komsomolets daily newspaper.

In 1993, Kholodov travelled to hotspots around the former Soviet Union, reporting for Moskovsky Komsomolets. In particular, he was in Abkhazia during the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict and, as he witnessed the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia, sent many detailed reports, including one entitled Sukhumi apocalypse.

In October 1993, Kholodov interviewed Defence Minister Pavel Grachev. For the next twelve months, on the basis of leaks from army and Ministry of Defence sources, he wrote and published numerous articles about high-level corruption in the military, especially concerning the misuse of funds intended to ease the withdrawal and resettlement of half a million former Soviet troops and their families who had been based in East Germany.

Kholodov was due to speak at Duma hearings into these allegations, which supposedly reached as high as the defence minister himself, when he was murdered. None of the allegations were ever tested in court. Grachev was replaced as Defence Minister in 1996 after the end of the First Chechen War.

Kholodov died on 17 October 1994 when he opened a booby-trapped briefcase in his newspaper's offices. He had picked up the case that morning from the left-luggage section at a Moscow train station after being told it contained documents exposing corruption in the armed forces.

The editors of Kholodov's daily, Moskovsky Komsomolets, accused the Russian military leadership (Defence Minister Grachev in particular) of ordering the killing. The military denied involvement. Speaking as a witness in court some six years later, Pavel Grachev claimed that some of my subordinates misunderstood my words.

Local and foreign correspondents had already died in Moscow and elsewhere in the country, but this was the first indisputable targeting of a journalist for their work.

More information: The Moscow Times

Kholodov's murder sent shockwaves through Russia's media community. Reaction abroad was muted, apart from professional media monitors and human rights organisations, and after December 1994 his killing was overshadowed by the onset of the First Chechen War.  

Kholodov's violent death personalized the risk faced by reporters in Russia, and the long drawn-out investigation and subsequent failure to convict the suspects had a chilling effect on investigative journalism in the country's newly free media.

The case remains unique in one aspect. With one exception (Oleg Sedinko in 2002), explosives have never again been used to kill a journalist in Russia; and unlike the ongoing spate of contract killings no evidence was presented in court that money had been paid to Kholodov's alleged killers. They were acting, apparently, to avoid the displeasure of their superiors and to advance their careers.

The trial of six defendants, four of them serving military officers, began in 2000 at the Moscow District Military Court. They were acquitted in 2002 and again, after a second trial, in 2004. On both occasions the Prosecutor General's Office protested against the verdict to the Russian Supreme Court.

Kholodov's elderly parents and their lawyers alleged improprieties in the conduct of the trial and the behaviour of the different judges presiding over the two trials, the second of whom, Yevgeny Zubov, would be in charge of the trial of Anna Politkovskaya's alleged killers. An attempt was made to have a complaint about the lack of a fair trial examined before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. It was rejected on the grounds that the murder preceded Russia's full accession to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in 1998.

By 2004, the killing was also technically beyond the statute of limitation for murder laid down in Russia's 1960 Criminal Code. Speaking in Germany in 2008, however, President Dmitry Medvedev said that the killings of certain journalists were of such importance that there should be no time limit for the prosecution of those responsible.

Kholodov's case was still unsolved as of 2009.

More information: CPJ

Journalism can never be silent:
that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault.
It must speak, and speak immediately,
while the echoes of wonder,
the claims of triumph
and the signs of horror are still in the air.

Henry Grunwald

MARGUERITE HIGGINS, EQUALITY FOR WAR JOURNALISTS

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Marguerite Higgins Hall, the American reporter and war correspondent, who was born on a day like today on 1920.

Marguerite Higgins Hall (September 3, 1920-January 3, 1966) was an American reporter and war correspondent.

Higgins covered World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, and in the process advanced the cause of equal access for female war correspondents. 

She had a long career with the New York Herald Tribune (1942-1963), and later, as a syndicated columnist for Newsday (1963-1965). 

She was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Foreign Correspondence awarded in 1951 for her coverage of the Korean War.

Higgins was born on September 3, 1920, in Hong Kong, where her father, Lawrence Higgins, was working at a shipping company. Her father, an Irish-American, met his future wife and Higgins' mother, Marguerite de Godard Higgins (who was of French aristocratic descent) in WWI Paris. Shortly afterward, they moved to Hong Kong, where their daughter was born.

The family moved back to the United States three years later and settled in Oakland.

Higgins started at the University of California, Berkeley in the fall of 1937 where she was a member of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority and wrote for The Daily Californian, serving as an editor in 1940.

She walked into the New York Herald Tribune city office after arriving in New York in August 1941. She met with the city editor at the time, L.L. Engel Engelking, and showed him her clippings. While he didn't offer her a job at the time, he told her to come back in a month and maybe he'd have a position for her. She decided to stay in New York and studied at Columbia.

More information: We Are The Mighty

Eager to become a war correspondent, Higgins persuaded the management of the New York Herald Tribune to send her to Europe in 1944, after working for the paper for two years. After being stationed in London and Paris, she was reassigned to Germany in March 1945. She witnessed the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945 and received a U.S. Army campaign ribbon for her assistance during the surrender by its S.S. guards. She later covered the Nuremberg war trials and the Soviet Union's blockade of Berlin.

In 1947, she became the Chief of the Tribune's bureau in Berlin.

In 1950, Higgins was named chief of the Tribune's Tokyo bureau, and she received a cold welcome by her colleagues in Tokyo. She later learned that a recently published novel by her colleague in Berlin had created a hostile impression. The novel, Shriek With Pleasure, depicted a female reporter in Berlin who stole stories and slept with sources.

As a result of her reporting from Korea, Higgins received the 1950 George Polk Memorial Award from the Overseas Press Club. She contributed along with other major journalistic and political figures to the Collier's magazine collaborative special issue Preview of the War We Do Not Want, with an article entitled Women of Russia.

Higgins continued to cover foreign affairs throughout the rest of her life, interviewing world leaders such as Francisco Franco, Nikita Khrushchev, and Jawaharlal Nehru. 

In 1955, she established and became chief of the Tribune's Moscow bureau and was the first American correspondent allowed back into the Soviet Union after Stalin's death.

In 1963, she joined Newsday and was assigned to cover Vietnam, where she visited hundreds of villages, interviewed most of the major figures, and wrote a book entitled Our Vietnam Nightmare. While in Vietnam, another feud developed between Higgins and David Halberstam, a New York Times correspondent who was assigned to replace Bigart. Her battle was not for scoops or headlines this time. Instead, it was based on the ideological differences and ego between an experienced correspondent, Higgins, and a young Halberstam.

When Higgins was six months old, she came down with malaria. A doctor told the family to take her to a mountain resort in present-day Vietnam to recover, which she did. Decades later, Higgins returned from assignment in South Vietnam in November 1965, where Higgins contracted leishmaniasis, a disease that led to her death on January 3, 1966, aged 45, in Washington, D.C. She is interred at Arlington National Cemetery with her husband.

More information: Wednesdays Women

I thought then how much more matter-of-fact
the actuality of war is than any of its projections in literature.
The wounded seldom cry
-there’s no one with time and emotion to listen.

Marguerite Higgins

JAMAL AHMAD KHASHOGGI, A GUARDIAN OF THE TRUTH

Today, The Grandma has wanted to remembered one of the bravest journalists of the last decades, Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian dissident and columnist for The Washington Post, who was assassinated on a day like today in 2018.

Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi (13 October 1958-2 October 2018) was a Saudi Arabian journalist, dissident, author, columnist for The Washington Post, and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel who was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government, allegedly at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

He also served as editor for the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al Watan, turning it into a platform for Saudi progressives.

Khashoggi fled Saudi Arabia in September 2017 and went into self-imposed exile. He said that the Saudi government had banned him from Twitter, and he later wrote newspaper articles critical of the Saudi government.

Khashoggi had been sharply critical of the Saudi rulers, King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He also opposed the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.

On 2 October 2018, Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents related to his planned marriage, but was never seen leaving. Amid news reports claiming that he had been killed and dismembered inside, an inspection of the consulate, by Saudi and Turkish officials, took place on 15 October.

Initially, the Saudi government denied the death, but following shifting explanations for Khashoggi's death, Saudi Arabia's attorney general eventually stated that the murder was premeditated.

By 16 November 2018, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had concluded that Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's assassination.

On 11 December 2018, Jamal Khashoggi was named Time magazine's person of the year for his work in journalism, along with other journalists who faced political persecution for their work. Time referred to Khashoggi as a Guardian of the Truth.

More information: BBC

Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi was born in Medina on 13 October 1958. His grandfather, Muhammad Khashoggi, who was of Turkish origin, and originally from Kayseri, married a Saudi Arabian woman and was personal physician to King Abdulaziz Al Saud, the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Jamal Khashoggi was the nephew of the high-profile Saudi Arabian arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, known for his part in the Iran-Contra scandal, who was estimated to have had a net worth of US$4 billion in the early 1980s.

Jamal Khashoggi was also the first cousin of Dodi Fayed, who was the companion of Diana, Princess of Wales, when the couple were killed in a Paris car accident.

Khashoggi received his elementary and secondary education in Saudi Arabia and obtained a BBA degree from Indiana State University in the United States in 1982.

Jamal Khashoggi began his career as a regional manager for Tihama Bookstores from 1983 to 1984. Later he worked as a correspondent for the Saudi Gazette and as an assistant manager for Okaz from 1985 to 1987. He continued his career as a reporter for various daily and weekly Arab newspapers from 1987 to 1990, including Asharq Al-Awsat, Al Majalla and Al Muslimoon. He also served with the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Agency, and possibly worked with the United States, during the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan.

Khashoggi became managing editor and acting editor-in-chief of Al Madina in 1991 and his tenure in that position lasted until 1999. During this period he was also a foreign correspondent in such countries as Afghanistan, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan, and in the Middle East. He then was appointed a deputy editor-in-chief of Arab News, and served in the post from 1999 to 2003.

Khashoggi briefly became the editor-in-chief of the Saudi Arabian daily Al Watan in 2003. After less than two months, he was dismissed in May 2003 by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Information because he had allowed a columnist to criticize the Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328), who is considered an important figure of Wahhabism. This incident led to Khashoggi's reputation in the West as a liberal progressive.

Khashoggi relocated to the United States in June 2017 and began writing for The Washington Post in September 2017.

In September 2017, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who felt that Khashoggi's work was tarnishing his image, told Turki Aldakhil that he would go after Khashoggi with a bullet.

Saudi Arabia used a reputed troll farm in Riyadh, employing hundreds of people, to harass Khashoggi and other critics of the Saudi regime. Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden accused the Saudi Government of using spyware known as Pegasus to monitor Khashoggi's cell phone.

According to The Spectator, With almost two million Twitter followers, he was the most famous political pundit in the Arab world and a regular guest on the major TV news networks in Britain and the United States.

In 2018, Khashoggi established a new political party called Democracy for the Arab World Now.

In December 2018, The Washington Post revealed that Khashoggi's columns at times were shaped by an organization funded by Saudi Arabia's regional nemesis, Qatar, including by proposing his topics, giving him drafts, goading him, and giving him research.

 More information: RSF

Khashoggi entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 to obtain documents related to his planned marriage, but no CCTV recorded him exiting. Amid news reports claiming that he had been dismembered with a bone saw inside the consulate, he was declared a missing person.

Saudi Arabian and Turkish officials inspected the consulate on 15 October, during which Turkish officials found evidence that Khashoggi had been killed and that chemical experts had tampered with evidence.

In November, the CIA concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered Khashoggi's assassination. News reports since early October, based on communication intercepted by the U.S., had suggested that bin Salman had given direct orders to lure the journalist into the embassy, intending to bring him back to Saudi Arabia in an illegal extraordinary rendition.

In March 2019, Interpol issued Red Notices for twenty people wanted in connection to the murder of Khashoggi.

On 19 June 2019, following a six-month investigation, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a 101-page report holding the State of Saudi Arabia responsible for the premeditated extrajudicial execution of Khashoggi. The report was issued by Agnes Callamard, a French human rights expert and UN Special Rapporteur.

The Saudi Arabian government changed its story several times. Initially, it denied the death and claimed that Khashoggi had left the consulate alive.

Eighteen days later, it said he had been strangled inside the consulate during a fistfight. Eighteen Saudis were arrested, including the team of fifteen who had been sent to confront him. The fistfight story was contradicted on 25 October when Saudi Arabia's attorney general said the murder was premeditated.

Many Saudi critics have been reported missing under suspicious circumstances.

On 16 November 2018, the Saudi Arabian government organized Islamic funeral prayers in absentia for Jamal Khashoggi in al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Madinah after the morning Friday and in the Great Mosque of Mecca after the Friday Jumu'ah prayer.

In a 20 June 2019 interview, Saudi Arabia's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir acknowledged to CNN's Christiane Amanpour that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was gruesome, but he said he disagreed with the conclusion of the United Nation's 101-page report, calling it flawed.

In September 2019, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stated that he bears the responsibility for Khashoggi's assassination by Saudi operatives because it happened under my watch, according to a preview of a PBS documentary. However, he denied having any prior knowledge of the plot.

More information: DW

On 23 December 2019, a Saudi Arabian court sentenced five officials to death and three others to 24 years in prison. Amnesty International’s Middle East Research Director Lynn Maalouf stated that Saudi Arabia's verdict against the officials was a whitewash. In a statement released, she said, The trial has been closed to the public and to independent monitors... the verdict fails to address the Saudi authorities’ involvement.

On 22 May 2020, Khashoggi's children pardoned the five officials, which means they will be set free rather than executed.

On 7 September 2020, eight people tied to the murder were sentenced to prison. Their sentences ranged from 7 to 20 years. Saudi Arabia did not release their names.

On 31 October, Istanbul's chief prosecutor released a statement saying that Khashoggi had been strangled as soon as he entered the consulate building, and that his body was dismembered and disposed of. This was the first such accusation by a Turkish figure of government.  His body may have been dissolved in acid, according to Turkish officials, and his last words captured on an audio recording were reported as I can't breathe. The recording was subsequently released by the Turkish government. Officials believed this recording contained evidence that Khashoggi was assassinated on the orders of the Saudi Royal Family.

In December 2018, Khashoggi was named by Time magazine as a Time Person of the Year for 2018.

More information: The Guardian

I don't want to be a dissident.
But in the same time,
I don't want to go back home and be silent again.

Jamal Khashoggi

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA, SYMBOL OF FREE JOURNALISM

Anna Politkovskaya

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to do nothing except to read and rest. She has been very interested in reread the works of one of the most important and critic journalists of the last decades, Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist, writer, and human rights activist who reported on political events in Russia.

Anna Politkovskaya was born on a day like today in 1958 and today she would celebrate her62nd birthday but she was murdered in 2006. A critic and honest voice, an independent journalist she has become a constant disturb for the political power and powerful deep and dark forces, especially since she reported on the Second Chechen War.

The Grandma, who admires of Anna Politkovskaya and her works, thinks that the best way to pay homage to her is talking about her life, her career, her struggle against corrupt policy and the most important, remembering her and her way of understanding free journalism.

Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya, in Russian  Анна Степановна Политковская (30 August 1958-7 October 2006) was a Russian journalist, writer, and human rights activist who reported on political events in Russia, in particular, the Second Chechen War (1999–2005).

It was her reporting from Chechnya that made Politkovskaya's national and international reputation. For seven years she refused to give up reporting on the war despite numerous acts of intimidation and violence.

Politkovskaya was arrested by Russian military forces in Chechnya and subjected to a mock execution.

She was poisoned while flying from Moscow via Rostov-on-Don to help resolve the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, and had to turn back, requiring careful medical treatment in Moscow to restore her health.

More information: Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty

Her post-1999 articles about conditions in Chechnya were turned into books several times; Russian readers' main access to her investigations and publications was through Novaya Gazeta, a Russian newspaper known for its often-critical investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs.

From 2000 onwards, she received numerous international awards for her work. In 2004, she published Vladimir Putin's Russia, a personal account of Russia for a Western readership.

On 7 October 2006, she was murdered in the elevator of her block of flats, an assassination that attracted international attention.

In June 2014, five men were sentenced to prison for the murder, but it is still unclear who ordered or paid for the contract killing. 

A Dirty War by Anna Politkovskaya

Politkovskaya was born Anna Mazepa in New York City in 1958, the daughter of Stepan F. Mazepa from Kostobobriv, Ukraine. Some sources say that her birth name was actually Hanna Mazeppa. Other sources state that she was born in Chernihiv region of Ukraine. Her parents, Soviet diplomats at the United Nations, were Ukrainian.

Politkovskaya spent most of her childhood in Moscow; she graduated from Moscow State University's school of journalism in 1980. While there, she defended a thesis about the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva and married fellow student Alexander Politkovsky. They had two children, Vera and Ilya.

At first Alexander was better known, joining TV journalist Vladislav Listyev as one of the hosts on the late-night TV programme Vzglyad. Apart from her childhood years, Politkovskaya spent no more than a few weeks outside Russia at any one time, even when her life came under threat. She was a U.S. citizen and had a U.S. passport, although she never relinquished her Russian citizenship.

Politkovskaya worked for Izvestia from 1982 to 1993 as a reporter and editor of the emergencies and accidents section. From 1994 to 1999, she worked as the assistant chief editor of Obshchaya Gazeta, headed by Yegor Yakovlev, where she wrote frequently about social problems, particularly the plight of refugees.

From June 1999 to 2006, she wrote columns for the biweekly Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper with strong investigative reporting that was critical of the new post-Soviet regime from the outset. She published several award-winning books about Chechnya, life in Russia, and Russia under Vladimir Putin, including Putin's Russia.

Politkovskaya won a number of awards for her work. She used each of these occasions to urge greater concern and responsibility by Western governments that, after the 11 September attacks on the United States, welcomed Putin's contribution to their War on Terror. She talked to officials, the military and the police and also frequently visited hospitals and refugee camps in Chechnya and in neighbouring Ingushetia to interview those injured and uprooted by the renewed fighting. 

More information: English Pen

In numerous articles critical of the war in Chechnya and the pro-Russian regime there, Politkovskaya described alleged abuses committed by Russian military forces, Chechen rebels, and the Russian-backed administration led by Akhmad Kadyrov and his son Ramzan Kadyrov. She also chronicled human rights abuses and policy failures elsewhere in the North Caucasus.

In one characteristic instance in 1999, she not only wrote about the plight of an ethnically-mixed old peoples' home under bombardment in Grozny, but helped to secure the safe evacuation of its elderly inhabitants with the aid of her newspaper and public support.

Her articles, many of which form the basis of A Dirty War (2001) and A Small Corner of Hell (2003), depict a conflict that brutalised both Chechen fighters and conscript soldiers in the federal army, and created hell for the civilians caught between them. 

Anna Politkovskaya

As Politkovskaya reported, the order supposedly restored under the Kadyrovs became a regime of endemic torture, abduction, and murder, by either the new Chechen authorities or the various federal forces based in Chechnya.

One of her last investigations was into the alleged mass poisoning of Chechen schoolchildren by a strong and unknown chemical substance which incapacitated them for many months.

After Politkovskaya became widely known in the West, she was commissioned to write Vladimir Putin's Russia, later subtitled Life in a Failing Democracy, a broader account of her views and experiences after former KGB lieutenant colonel Vladimir Putin became Boris Yeltsin's Prime Minister, and then succeeded him as President of Russia.

In May 2007, Random House posthumously published Politkovskaya's A Russian Diary, containing extracts from her notebook and other writings. Subtitled A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia, the book gives her account of the period from December 2003 to August 2005, including what she described as the death of Russian parliamentary democracy, the Beslan school hostage crisis, and the winter and summer of discontent from January to August 2005. Because she was murdered while translation was being completed, final editing had to go ahead without her help, wrote translator Arch Tait in a note to the book.

Who killed Anna and who lay beyond her killer remains unknown, wrote Jon Snow, the main news anchor for the United Kingdom's Channel 4 in his foreword to the book's UK edition. Her murder robbed too many of us of absolutely vital sources of information and contact, he concluded, Yet it may, ultimately, be seen to have at least helped prepare the way for the unmasking of the dark forces at the heart of Russia's current being. I must confess that I finished reading A Russian Diary feeling that it should be taken up and dropped from the air in vast quantities throughout the length and breadth of Mother Russia, for all her people to read." 

More information: The Guardian

Politkovskaya was closely involved in attempts to negotiate the release of hostages in the Moscow theatre hostage crisis of 2002. When the Beslan school hostage crisis erupted in the North Caucasus in early September 2004, Politkovskaya attempted to fly there to act as a mediator, but was taken off the plane, acutely ill due to an attempted poisoning, in Rostov-on-Don.

In Moscow, Politkovskaya was not invited to press conferences or gatherings that Kremlin officials might attend, in case the organisers were suspected of harbouring sympathies toward her. Despite this, many top officials allegedly talked to her when she was writing articles or conducting investigations. According to one of her articles, they did talk to her, but only when they weren't likely to be observed: outside in crowds, or in houses that they approached by different routes, like spies. She also claimed that the Kremlin tried to block her access to information and discredit her.

After Politkovskaya's murder, Vyacheslav Izmailov, her colleague at Novaya Gazeta -a military man who had helped negotiate the release of dozens of hostages in Chechnya before 1999- said that he knew of at least nine previous occasions when Politkovskaya had faced death, commenting Frontline soldiers do not usually go into battle so often and survive.

Anna Politkovskaya

Politkovskaya herself did not deny being afraid, but felt responsible and concerned for her informants. She often received death threats as a result of her work, including being threatened with rape and experiencing a mock execution after being arrested by the military in Chechnya.

Upon leaving the camp, Politkovskaya was detained, interrogated, beaten, and humiliated by Russian troops: the young officers tortured me, skillfully hitting my sore spots. They looked through my children's pictures, making a point of saying what they would like to do to the kids. This went on for about three hours. She was subjected to a mock execution using a BM-21 Grad multiple-launch rocket system, then poisoned with a cup of tea that made her vomit. Her tape records were confiscated.

After the mock execution, the Russian lieutenant colonel said to her: Here's the banya. Take off your clothes. Seeing that his words had no effect, he got very angry: A real lieutenant colonel is courting you, and you say no, you militant bitch.

In 2006, the European Court of Human Rights found the Russian Federation responsible for the forced disappearance of a suspected Ingush militant, Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev. Colonel-General Alexander Baranov, the commander of the Russian Caucasus deployment mentioned by Politkovskaya's camp guide as the one who ordered captured militants to be kept in the pits, was filmed as he ordered Yandiyev to be executed.

While flying south in September 2004 to help negotiate with those who had taken over a thousand hostages in a school in Beslan (North Ossetia), Politkovskaya fell violently ill and lost consciousness after drinking tea given to her by an Aeroflot flight attendant. She had reportedly been poisoned, with some accusing the former Soviet secret police poison facility.

More information: CNN

Politkovskaya was found dead in the lift, in her block of flats in central Moscow on 7 October 2006. She had been shot twice in the chest, once in the shoulder, and once in the head at point-blank range.

The assassination had happened on Vladimir Putin's birthday, and two days after Ramzan Kadyrov's 30th birthday celebrations, raising suspicions that one or both were served up by the contract hit. There was widespread international reaction to the assassination.

The funeral was held on 10 October 2006 at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in the outskirts of Moscow. Before Politkovskaya was buried, more than one thousand mourners filed past her coffin to pay their last respects.

Dozens of Politkovskaya's colleagues, public figures, and admirers of her work gathered at the cemetery. No high-ranking Russian officials could be seen at the ceremony. Politkovskaya was buried near her father, who had died shortly before her.

In May 2007, a large posthumous collection of Anna's articles, entitled With Good Reason, was published by Novaya Gazeta and launched at the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow. The event came soon after the birth of Anna's namesake grandchild: Vera's daughter was named Anna in honour of her grandmother.

A few months later, 10 men were detained on suspicion of various degrees of involvement in Politkovskaya's murder. Four of them were brought before the Moscow District Military Court in October 2008.

More information: The Moscow Times

People sometimes pay with their lives

for saying aloud what they think.

In fact, one can even get killed for giving me information.

I am not the only one in danger.

I have examples that prove it.

Anna Politkovskaya