Aliaksandr Klaskouski: Journalism is not just a craft. It’s a trial by both pressure and freedom

This inter­view is part of the col­lec­tion “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion”, a liv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny to the cre­ative and civic pres­ence of those who have not lost their voice even in exile.

Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki at the BAJ con­fer­ence in Sep­tem­ber 2023. Pho­to: BAJ

The col­lec­tion tells the sto­ry of the lau­re­ates of the “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” award, found­ed by the Belaru­sian PEN in part­ner­ship with the Human Rights Cen­ter “Vias­na”, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, Press Club Belarus and Free Press for East­ern Europe endow­ment fund. The col­lec­tion will be pre­sent­ed on Novem­ber 15, 2025 at 5:00 PM dur­ing a dis­cus­sion with the lau­re­ates of the “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” award at the Euro­pean Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cen­ter (Europe­jskie Cen­trum Sol­i­darnoś­ci, Gdańsk, pl. Sol­i­darnoś­ci 1).

When Znamya Yunosti wrote about someone with Perestroika views, they almost automatically became a deputy

You entered the pro­fes­sion at a time when the Sovi­et media sys­tem was burst­ing at the seams and a new type of press was emerg­ing. What was the essence of the Per­e­stroi­ka news­pa­per move­ment? Was it chal­leng­ing to inte­grate new stan­dards into the Sovi­et frame­work, which was not yet show­ing signs of dete­ri­o­ra­tion?

Then, the Belaru­sian media became clear­ly strat­i­fied and polar­ized. Some sup­port­ed Per­e­stroi­ka, while oth­ers took a more reac­tionary stance. The first group includ­ed LiM, Chyr­von­aya Zme­na, Molodezh­naya Gaze­ta, and Zvyaz­da, the sud­den­ly democ­ra­tized par­ty news­pa­per. A new wave of media appeared in 1990–1991: Beloruss­ki Rynok, Press­ball, Svabo­da, Svo­bod­nye Novosti, Nar­o­d­naya Gaze­ta, and non-gov­ern­men­tal region­al media. How­ev­er, most of the par­ty and local press remained in place.

The deci­sive fac­tor was like­ly the courage of the edi­tors and their teams. At LiM, for instance, it was Ana­tol Viartsinsky’s per­son­al­i­ty that trans­formed a gray, retouched pub­li­ca­tion into a vibrant socio-polit­i­cal news­pa­per. Back then, every jour­nal­ist and edi­to­r­i­al office took as much free­dom as they dared.

You found your­self at Znamya Yunos­ti, where a con­stel­la­tion of remark­able authors had gath­ered — from sea­soned vet­er­ans like Pavel Yakubovich, to word­smiths like Lil­ia Brand­abouskaya, and lit­er­ary knights like Yury Velt­ner. At the same time, the edi­tor-in-chief — you — was very young. What did the exper­i­ment look like from the inside? Did you feel that some of your col­leagues looked down on you? Or did Per­e­stroi­ka reset both age and posi­tions?

It was my sec­ond time join­ing an edi­to­r­i­al office after work­ing at Zvyaz­da and the Parus mag­a­zine. I start­ed there as a stu­dent. I free­lanced, and my pub­li­ca­tions were con­sid­ered high-end. Even dur­ing the stag­nant years, Znamya Yunos­ti remained a live­ly and slight­ly friv­o­lous news­pa­per with a sedi­tious spir­it. In con­trast to the par­ty bod­ies, it was a source of vital­i­ty.

Then, I was offered the posi­tion of duty sec­re­tary. The work was, tru­ly, gru­el­ing — you had to not only design lay­outs, but also run to the print­ing shop twen­ty times a day, trim the edges of mate­ri­als, over­see type­set­ting, and give direc­tions to the mak­er-ups. The tech­nol­o­gy back then was prac­ti­cal­ly Guten­berg-style.

Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki — exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary of “Zvyaz­da”. 1985. Pho­to: from per­son­al archive

And indeed, I was sur­round­ed by the true titans of jour­nal­ism. For exam­ple, Pavel Yakubovich was almost a God to me. As the head of the feuil­leton and sports depart­ment, he could write with both sharp­ness and fig­u­ra­tive­ness. I think Lukashen­ka, as a foot­ball fan, also read his reports. This may have influ­enced Yakubovich’s lat­er appoint­ment as edi­tor-in-chief of Sovet­skaya Belorus­sia.

His edgy mate­ri­als became a phe­nom­e­non of the Sovi­et era. Appar­ent­ly, no one else had such charis­ma and pop­u­lar­i­ty. Didn’t the wide­spread fame infat­u­ate him?

No, we were on good terms with him. He was friend­ly, unpre­ten­tious, and always car­ried a sense of humor. There was a tra­di­tion: when print­ing began on the next day’s issue, the duty sec­re­tary would bring a sam­ple copy and place a bot­tle of spir­its on top of it. Yakubovich and I would often talk while drink­ing. These infor­mal mas­ter class­es were also very ben­e­fi­cial.

When I returned to the edi­to­r­i­al office a few years lat­er, I was already well-known. The team became notice­ably younger over that time, but I con­tin­ued to update it by hir­ing Ales Lipai, Vital Tsy­hank­ou, and Aleh Hruzdzilovich. By the way, the lat­ter came from the Kom­so­mol. He joined the struc­ture just to get an apart­ment, but want­ed a real jour­nal­ism job.

The news­pa­per exud­ed free­dom and youth. One indi­ca­tor of its phe­nom­e­nal suc­cess was its cir­cu­la­tion of 800,000. And what about the old guard: did they get a sec­ond wind?

A vivid exam­ple is Hali­na Aizen­sh­tat. The pre­vi­ous­ly incon­spic­u­ous head of the agri­cul­tur­al depart­ment sud­den­ly became a mil­i­tant pub­li­cist and began coop­er­at­ing with Radio Lib­er­ty and Svo­bod­nye Novosti.

It was an incred­i­ble time for jour­nal­ism. We all felt like unique indi­vid­u­als. Besides, for decades, jour­nal­ists have been taught to serve exclu­sive­ly as the party’s mouth­pieces. Sud­den­ly, we had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to shape pub­lic opin­ion and influ­ence it our­selves. When­ev­er the most pop­u­lar news­pa­per wrote about a man with Per­e­stroi­ka views, he would almost auto­mat­i­cal­ly become a deputy. After all, Znamya Yunos­ti stuck out of near­ly every over­stuffed mail­box. Every new issue was snapped up like hot­cakes at kiosks.

Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki — edi­tor of “Znamia yunos­ti”. April 1991. Pho­to: from own archive

To this day, some of my col­leagues who entered the world of big pol­i­tics back then remain silent about it.

The media’s role was excep­tion­al dur­ing the brief thaw. The peo­ple eager­ly con­sumed the press, which spoke in the voice of Per­e­stroi­ka. The media played a sig­nif­i­cant role in shap­ing the emer­gence of a demo­c­ra­t­ic fac­tion with­in the Supreme Coun­cil of the 12^th con­vo­ca­tion.

Journalism requires not just energy and creativity, but also strong organizational skills. This is just like in football. Order beats class

That’s when the debate inten­si­fied: who has the right to be a jour­nal­ist or an edi­tor? Some empha­sized intel­lect and civic tem­pera­ment, say­ing no spe­cial edu­ca­tion was need­ed — tal­ent was what mat­tered most.

I dis­agreed. The jour­nal­ism depart­ment indeed was ide­ol­o­gy-dri­ven, but it pro­vid­ed a foun­da­tion in lan­guage, lit­er­a­ture, and genre tech­nol­o­gy. It also offered ideas for design­ing a news­pa­per page and orga­niz­ing the edi­to­r­i­al office’s work.

Jour­nal­ists weren’t the only ones who cre­at­ed and head­ed the new and old edi­to­r­i­al offices. The media of that time were joined by peo­ple from a vari­ety of pro­fes­sions. Many of the new­ly born out­lets soon died. Often inglo­ri­ous­ly and unno­tice­ably. There were instances when famous writ­ers and pub­li­cists took over news­pa­pers. Some exam­ples are Siamion Bukchyn, Ana­tol Kazlovich, and Vasil Yakaven­ka. Word­smiths, thinkers, fight­ers. But they didn’t suc­ceed either! What’s the catch here?

A news­pa­per is a blend of cre­ativ­i­ty, orga­ni­za­tion, and respon­si­bil­i­ty. An edi­tor should be a man­ag­er, a tech­nol­o­gist, and some­what of a busi­ness­man. Some of the writ­ers who start­ed pub­lish­ing peri­od­i­cals lacked that, not to men­tion the engi­neers or agron­o­mists who cre­at­ed their own pub­li­ca­tions.

And then, there’s the whole Per­e­stroi­ka jour­nal­ism craze. Every­one felt like lumi­nar­ies. I also intro­duced the author’s col­umn, “Here is What I Think,” in Znamya Yunos­ti. A line of peo­ple formed right away, eager to share their thoughts on con­tro­ver­sial issues. It was not always deep think­ing, though. There­fore, one day, I held a tough jump-start meet­ing. I asked, “Who will write arti­cles and reports?” In short, we began restor­ing the bal­ance.

The Bukchyn and Yakaven­ka news­pa­pers lacked time-sen­si­tive news jour­nal­ism. Dur­ing this time, I real­ized that jour­nal­ism requires not only ener­gy and cre­ativ­i­ty, but also orga­ni­za­tion. This is just like in foot­ball. Order beats class. In oth­er words, each play­er must know their place and per­form their func­tions auto­mat­i­cal­ly.

Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki — Edi­tor-in-chief of the mag­a­zine “Rabochaya Sme­na” (lat­er “Parus”). 1986. Pho­to: from per­son­al archive

How did that relate to your pre­vi­ous work expe­ri­ence at Parus, where the focus was on jour­nal­ism, ana­lyt­ics, and artis­tic gen­res rather than infor­ma­tion, and on taste and cre­ativ­i­ty rather than speed? Was it chal­leng­ing to tran­si­tion from a school like that to work­ing at a news­pa­per?

A mag­a­zine pro­vides the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work slow­ly on texts and pol­ish them. I pay close atten­tion to a good school of love for a well-aimed, con­sid­ered word. To a cer­tain extent, I am a per­fec­tion­ist, hon­ing every sen­tence. Con­verse­ly, every sec­ond counts in an online pub­li­ca­tion.

Parus’s his­to­ry is a sep­a­rate chap­ter in the his­to­ry of Belaru­sian Per­e­stroi­ka jour­nal­ism. It start­ed as a gray, insti­tu­tion­alised bul­letin, but it became a fash­ion­able, influ­en­tial mag­a­zine for the youth of the whole coun­try. What a mir­a­cle! What was the secret of trans­for­ma­tion?

A unique team has been formed: Barys Pas­tar­nak, Yafim Shur, Ali­ak­san­dr Rosin, Valiantsin Masluk­ou, and Iry­na Pauluchyk. They trans­formed an aver­age jour­nal into some­thing extra­or­di­nary. Accord­ing to leg­end — or per­haps it real­ly hap­pened — when, at yet anoth­er dull meet­ing in Min­sk, a copy acci­den­tal­ly fell into the hands of CPSU Cen­tral Com­mit­tee sec­re­tary Yahor Liha­chou, he leafed through it and said: “Excel­lent pub­li­ca­tion — let’s make it all-Union.”

And so I, a promis­ing young man, was appoint­ed edi­tor-in-chief. A new per­son­nel pol­i­cy was imple­ment­ed: the younger gen­er­a­tion was to be pro­mot­ed. The sit­u­a­tion was tricky: you had to take the lead, even though there were already experts around rid­ing the wave of suc­cess. Although there were mis­un­der­stand­ings and grudges, we ulti­mate­ly found com­mon ground. The mag­a­zine became a phe­nom­e­non, sell­ing a mil­lion copies and receiv­ing let­ters from read­ers in loads. We broke taboos by writ­ing about rock music and coun­ter­cul­tur­al youth — the peo­ple that the estab­lish­ment con­sid­ered dubi­ous. We showed that these were nor­mal young peo­ple, fed up with the gray­ness of life and its rigid reg­u­la­tions.

I have writ­ten about sedi­tious top­ics myself, such as the idea of inde­pen­dence for the Union republics. After that pub­li­ca­tion, some­one from the KGB vis­it­ed us — but noth­ing came of it. Gor­bachev intro­duced glas­nost, and by then, they were already hes­i­tant to inter­fere with us.

Back then, you often had to trav­el to Moscow, the epi­cen­ter of high fash­ion in jour­nal­ism and pol­i­tics. What lessons did this school offer?

That’s true. Per­e­stroi­ka was in full swing there. I par­tic­u­lar­ly remem­ber the speech by CPSU Cen­tral Com­mit­tee Sec­re­tary for Ide­ol­o­gy, Alek­san­dr Yakovlev — a pow­er bro­ker who, they say, even inspired Gor­bachev toward Per­e­stroi­ka. Back then, he said such dan­ger­ous things that, in the end, he him­self not­ed: “The ortho­dox will prob­a­bly tear me apart for this.”

I returned home with a clear under­stand­ing of why Ales Adamovich[1] referred to our repub­lic as the “Per­e­stroi­ka Vendée.” When local ide­o­logues or Glavlit (the cen­sor­ship author­i­ty) start­ed pes­ter­ing me for some­thing, I fought back with ref­er­ences to Moscow and the “fresh wind of per­e­stroi­ka.”

That wave of democracy proponents also exhibited a degree of dogmatism. Perhaps the issue of language was overly emphasised

Your next step was Nar­o­d­naya Gaze­ta. Was it an exam­ple of mod­ern jour­nal­ism? How did the evo­lu­tion unfold?

To be hon­est, we had a hard time get­ting into the new cur­rent. It was mot­ley, but also yel­low­ish. Psy­chics, folk heal­ers, and all sorts of wish-granters began to appear — and right beside them, in neigh­bor­ing columns, priests denounced for­tune-telling and Hal­loween. We learned from our mis­takes and smoothed out the rough spots. In some ways, we went over­board, but that’s how we com­pre­hend­ed sci­ence: com­bin­ing the seri­ous and the fas­ci­nat­ing to increase cir­cu­la­tion with­out requir­ing a sub­scrip­tion.

Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki — the new deputy edi­tor-in-chief of Nar­o­d­naya Gaze­ta. June 1991. Pho­to: from per­son­al archive

Just the day before, things were sim­ple. If you were a Kom­so­mol mem­ber, you sub­scribed to the Kom­so­mol edi­tion. If you were a com­mu­nist, you read the par­ty pub­li­ca­tion. If you were a trade union mem­ber, you sub­scribed to the trade union news­pa­per.

And now the read­er had to be con­quered. We achieved this by pro­vid­ing live reports from Par­lia­ment, prac­tic­ing sharp jour­nal­ism, and address­ing the issues and con­cerns of aver­age cit­i­zens.

Many per­ceived Nar­o­d­naya Gaze­ta as a “nation­al demo­c­ra­t­ic” pub­li­ca­tion. Indeed, Zianon Paz­ni­ak and the oth­er deputies of the Belaru­sian Pop­u­lar Front fig­u­ra­tive­ly kicked open the doors to the edi­to­r­i­al office and deliv­ered their arti­cles. Pazniak’s pub­li­ca­tion about Russ­ian impe­ri­al­ism caused a fren­zied explo­sion. It was met with a sea of delight and an ocean of indig­na­tion. The pub­li­ca­tion was cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly reject­ed by many con­ser­v­a­tive deputies, USSR-nos­tal­gic read­ers, and even part of the edi­to­r­i­al board itself! Now, how­ev­er, it is clear that Paz­ni­ak saw far ahead and defined the essence of Impe­r­i­al Rus­sia with sur­pris­ing accu­ra­cy.

But in many ways, he buried his polit­i­cal per­spec­tive with this state­ment. The elec­torate has not for­giv­en such harsh intran­si­gence towards “fra­ter­nal Rus­sia.” The mass­es did not accept the sin­cere dis­like. They con­sid­ered it an insult to the “Russ­ian world.”

Indeed, it was a BPF tragedy. First, there was a mas­sive surge of inspi­ra­tion and ral­lies, with crowds fill­ing the squares. Then came the land­slide. Peo­ple were tired of the polit­i­cal chaos, short­ages, and fren­zied rise in prices. The pro­pa­gan­da spec­u­lat­ed on the dif­fi­cul­ties of life and inces­sant­ly blamed the oppo­si­tion. “Paz­ni­ak is a fas­cist.” And it worked.

Hon­esty com­pels us to acknowl­edge a cer­tain dog­ma­tism in the oppo­si­tion­al prac­tice. The lan­guage issue may have been over­ly empha­sised. The top­ic is del­i­cate, yet it was pre­sent­ed in a rad­i­cal way that failed to con­sid­er the psy­chol­o­gy of the mass­es. They mod­eled them­selves on the Baltic Pop­u­lar Fronts and relied on eth­nic nation­al­ism, although Belaru­sians had a dif­fer­ent lev­el of nation­al iden­ti­ty. Con­se­quent­ly, the pop­ulist Lukashen­ka out­per­formed his pri­ma­ry oppo­nents in emo­tion­al appeal. Unfor­tu­nate­ly.

Every­one blamed Lukashen­ka when the democ­ra­ti­za­tion process stalled. And right­ly so. He swift­ly stran­gled the frag­ile democ­ra­cy born in the ear­ly nineties. That includ­ed the jour­nal­is­tic com­mu­ni­ty. Weren’t there also mis­takes on your part? An inter­nal weak­ness?

I remem­ber the first press con­fer­ence of the “young pres­i­dent.” He said, “From today, the Belaru­sian press can feel free.” Soon after the famous sto­ry about the white spots — when the pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tion removed Deputy Siarhei Antonchyk’s report on cor­rup­tion in Lukashenka’s inner cir­cle from the news­pa­pers — he fired the edi­tors and began per­se­cut­ing inde­pen­dent pub­li­ca­tions.

Cor­po­rate sol­i­dar­i­ty was also lack­ing. Jour­nal­ists were divid­ed, and the press was polar­ized. The Union of Jour­nal­ists remained a con­ser­v­a­tive orga­ni­za­tion with a Sovi­et mind­set. An orga­ni­za­tion like that could not defend our pro­fes­sion­al rights or free­dom of speech. The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) was estab­lished in the fall of 1995, at a time when pow­er in the coun­try was con­sol­i­dat­ing in one pair of hands. It was too late. The weak­ness of guild and pro­fes­sion­al struc­tures great­ly influ­enced the press’s fate.

Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki (at the table on the left) writes down the then Chair­man of the Supreme Sovi­et Mieczysław Hryb in the edi­to­r­i­al office of “Nar­o­d­naya Gaze­ta”. Sep­tem­ber 1994. Pho­to: from his own archive

As the gov­ern­ment was being estab­lished, the press was los­ing its free­dom. Peo­ple like you were lit­er­al­ly in the mid­dle of the action, in the live broad­cast of his­to­ry. What was it like talk­ing to Stanis­lau Shushke­vich[2] on Belaru­sian state tele­vi­sion?

These were not staged broad­casts, but real, live lines. There were tele­phones in the stu­dio, uncon­trolled calls, and uncom­fort­able, sharp ques­tions about the lack of goods and the increase in bread prices. Even though Speak­er Shushke­vich was not the one respon­si­ble; Prime Min­is­ter Kebich was.

Behind the scenes, I per­suad­ed Belarus’s de fac­to leader, “Mr. Shushke­vich, we need to take the press out of state con­trol.” At the time, all pub­li­ca­tions were still affil­i­at­ed with state depart­ments and com­mit­tees. I felt first­hand what lay behind it: in 1991, the Kom­so­mol sim­ply removed me from the posi­tion of edi­tor-in-chief of Znamya Yunos­ti. A ple­nary meet­ing was con­vened, and they decid­ed that “the news­pa­per had betrayed its ideals” — and broke its back­bone.

So I told Shushke­vich, “Look at Moscow. The media there is already free. In France, where I just returned from, there is no state media at all!” He was sur­prised, “Real­ly?”. Not even this pro-democ­ra­cy fig­ure real­ized the impor­tance of media reform. Had they gone with it at least in part, it would have been more chal­leng­ing for Lukashen­ka to dom­i­nate the infor­ma­tion land­scape. The entire polit­i­cal plot could have played out dif­fer­ent­ly.

Yesterday’s marginals have risen to the top, exacting revenge for their former insignificance. This is a Bolshevik phenomenon: We have been naught…

With­out roman­ti­ciz­ing jour­nal­ism of those years — even dur­ing its so-called gold­en age — there was still a sense of empti­ness: wind­blown quills and dry inkwells. Is this inevitable when deep and super­fi­cial texts are pub­lished next to each oth­er?

The dizzi­ness of free­dom. This turn of events intox­i­cat­ed peo­ple. The texts were some­times “intox­i­cat­ed,” too. I’ll state it again: jour­nal­ism isn’t just cre­ativ­i­ty; it’s also pro­duc­tion. Although time has great­ly improved pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion, it was not enough to solid­i­fy what was learned.

In the his­to­ry of 1990s jour­nal­ism, there are many knight­ly names, with­out exag­ger­a­tion. Your col­leagues ran into courts, batons, fines, and clo­sures with­out fear and did not break down. There are many oth­er things in 2025, espe­cial­ly in the state press. Today, there are so many ordi­nary mer­ce­nar­ies and sol­diers of the pen. Where did the mil­i­tant pro­pa­gan­da come from? Why is it flour­ish­ing?

The fish rots from the head down. This is the result of the regime’s anti-selec­tion. Lukashenko brought to the fore­front those who, under dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances, would have remained on the mar­gins — among the out­siders.

This is rem­i­nis­cent of the Bol­she­vik phe­nom­e­non: We have been naught / we shall be all.[3] Not only do peo­ple with griev­ances about their alleged long-stand­ing under­val­u­a­tion now approve of the patron’s odi­ous pol­i­cy, but they also vent their own incur­able com­plex­es. They seek revenge for their incom­pe­tence and sense of insignif­i­cance. They take revenge on the tru­ly tal­ent­ed, those who can think vivid­ly and cre­ative­ly.

Lukashen­ka removed not only the legal pro­tec­tions — mak­ing it point­less to go to court over slan­der or lies — but also the moral thresh­old. Those who are most non­cha­lant, like Ryhor Azaron­ak,[4] are show­ered with orders, medals, and awards. Such peo­ple are favored now. This is their finest hour. Indeed, there are also cyn­ics who don’t believe in ide­ol­o­gy but see that crude pro­pa­gan­da can advance a career. I find it amus­ing when their lam­poons are referred to as “opin­ion jour­nal­ism.” True opin­ion jour­nal­ism is about tal­ent, style, and inde­pen­dent thought — not about spew­ing insults.

You men­tioned Hali­na Aizenshtat’s sud­den rise to fame. For years, she wrote about the beau­ti­ful rape­seed bloom. Then came Per­e­stroi­ka, a ran­dom bull’s‑eye note about pol­i­tics, and a per­son became a star. The Vendée metaphor has resur­faced, accom­pa­nied by a pal­pa­ble sense of emo­tion­al ten­sion rem­i­nis­cent of the era of anti-democ­ra­cy and anti-Belaru­sian­ism. Their words reek of obscu­ran­tism, the same way as Aizenshtat’s once breathed hope. Do the Prae­to­ri­ans[5] of state jour­nal­ism deserve any atten­tion?

A com­par­i­son reveals the appar­ent dif­fer­ence. Even the late Sovi­et sys­tem was soft­er and smarter. It inte­grat­ed tal­ent­ed peo­ple. Take Henadz Buraukin, a man of nation­al spir­it who led radio and tele­vi­sion. When the Tuteishy­ja play was staged and the white-red-white flag was raised on the stage of the Yan­ka Kupala The­ater next to the main par­ty head­quar­ters, the nomen­klatu­ra man told me, “Ali­ak­san­dr, it seems we are tak­ing over,” while we were sit­ting next to each oth­er in the hall. By “we,” he meant the rise of Belaru­sian­ness.

There were peo­ple in lead­er­ship posi­tions capa­ble of inter­nal resis­tance. For exam­ple, the poet Siarhei Zakon­nikau defend­ed Vasil Bykau[6] while work­ing in the cul­tur­al depart­ment of the Cen­tral Com­mit­tee of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty of the Sovi­et Union. The sys­tem attempt­ed to rely on tal­ent, albeit with­in clear­ly defined lim­its.

Now, every­thing is dif­fer­ent. The most mali­cious and cyn­i­cal peo­ple have come to the top. Pro­pa­gan­da has become an immoral pro­fes­sion, and its tech­no­log­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties are stronger than ever. That’s why it’s so dan­ger­ous — tal­ent with­out a moral com­pass is destruc­tive.

Pro­pa­gan­da wars are gen­er­al­ly an ancient art. They always need­ed their own Land­sknechts[7] or Prae­to­ri­an Guard. We can see the effects of pro­pa­gan­da in Rus­sia. The nation is poi­soned by chau­vin­ism, “Krym­nashism,”[8] and this insane sense of supe­ri­or­i­ty. There­fore, agit­prop should not be dis­missed as prim­i­tive or inef­fec­tive.

If we sum­ma­rize the evo­lu­tion of jour­nal­ism from Per­e­stroi­ka to the present day, it is clear that it has fos­tered cre­ative courage. But were there enough insti­tu­tion­al foun­da­tions, such as pro­fes­sion­al codes, eth­i­cal stan­dards, and self-reg­u­la­tion?

This has always been our tra­di­tion­al weak­ness, but it has become espe­cial­ly acute with the advent of the inter­net. I have been pla­gia­rized hun­dreds of times, rude­ly and shame­less­ly. I turn to the respon­si­ble edi­tor and say, “You reprint­ed my text with­out a link or men­tion of the author!” In response, I hear: “But we took it from the inter­net!”

When I was elect­ed to the BAJ board, I helped ini­ti­ate the “High-Qual­i­ty Jour­nal­ism” cam­paign. We tried to estab­lish stan­dards and com­bat con­tent appropi­ra­tion. How­ev­er, the code of ethics did not pass imme­di­ate­ly. The edi­tors resist­ed. It was only at the next con­gress that it was approved.

Many pub­li­ca­tions find it incon­ve­nient because the require­ments were strict, and rewrit­ing some­one else’s work had become com­mon­place.

Yes, the stan­dards were dif­fi­cult to imple­ment. The web­site Mediakritika.by appeared, host­ed by Yan­i­na Mel­nika­va. I was a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor there, ana­lyz­ing my col­leagues’ pro­fes­sion­al mis­takes. It was a thank­less mis­sion. Jour­nal­ists are a tight-knit group, and almost every­one knows each oth­er. Many took offense. The fact that crit­i­cism is also a con­cern for the pro­fes­sion was not uni­ver­sal­ly under­stood. How­ev­er, progress was grad­u­al­ly being made. BAJ played a sig­nif­i­cant role in this process.

The story about Boris Nemtsov being detained at Minsk airport with money “to sponsor the revolution” marked the beginning of online reporting

The next chap­ter of your biog­ra­phy is Bela­PAN and Naviny.by. This is a new kind of jour­nal­ism: a net­work of con­nec­tions, a school of exper­tise, and a com­mit­ment to ana­lyt­ics and respon­si­bil­i­ty. A new chal­lenge?

The founder of both projects, Ales Lipai, was a poet and a roman­tic by nature, with an excep­tion­al under­stand­ing of the jour­nal­is­tic pro­fes­sion. Back in the ear­ly nineties, he real­ized that a news agency was need­ed, mod­eled on West­ern out­lets like Reuters and the Asso­ci­at­ed Press — no jour­nal­is­tic exal­ta­tion, only facts and ver­i­fied infor­ma­tion, sep­a­rate from com­men­tary.

This is how Naviny.by began. August 2003. Pho­to: from the archive of Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki

We strove to adhere to inter­na­tion­al stan­dards of news and ana­lyt­i­cal jour­nal­ism. It’s not easy. Peo­ple accus­tomed to writ­ing lengthy news­pa­per columns, with their empha­sis on detail and epi­thets, had to force them­selves to learn to write briefly and accu­rate­ly. But they adapt­ed quick­ly.

We tried to mon­e­tize con­tent before we even knew what the term meant. We sold infor­ma­tion. Embassies, inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions were our sub­scribers. Why was there a demand? Every­one knew that if Bela­PAN wrote it, it was sure to be true.

Oth­er jour­nal­ists were sur­prised by the lay­out of the edi­to­r­i­al office. Instead of sep­a­rate offices, there was an open space with a large news­room where every­one worked togeth­er and exchanged infor­ma­tion. There were also areas where you could drink tea or even take a nap. Some­thing entire­ly new for Belarus.

The edi­tor could call an impromp­tu meet­ing, solve a prob­lem right away, and send a reporter to cov­er some­thing. We brain­stormed togeth­er on how best to present the news and came up with catchy head­lines. The “infor­ma­tion bar­racks” and “mil­i­tary dis­ci­pline” were not to everyone’s taste. As a result, some peo­ple left.

But soon, sequence, speed, and inter­ac­tion became the norm. At some point, Ales had the idea to cre­ate Naviny.by, the first full-fledged online news­pa­per in Belarus. We dis­cussed the con­cept togeth­er, after which I was asked to become edi­tor-in-chief.

Next came the pos­si­bil­i­ties of vir­tu­al real­i­ty: online reports, instant reac­tions, and a new pace.

I remem­ber when Boris Nemtsov flew to Min­sk and was detained at the air­port. He was report­ed­ly car­ry­ing a brief­case full of dol­lars. Like, $50,000 for the rev­o­lu­tion. Was it a provo­ca­tion by the secu­ri­ty ser­vices? Or was it some­thing else? Our lead­ing reporter, Siarhei Pul­sha, called in con­fu­sion: there was noth­ing to write about — the planned inter­view with Nemtsov had fall­en through, and he’d have to return to the news­room emp­ty-hand­ed. “Stop! Stay and tell us step by step what’s going on!” he was told.

Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki Inter­views Russ­ian politi­cian Rygor Yaulin­sky. 2005. Pho­to: from per­son­al archive

And so began the live news: “Nemtsov has been detained; they are fab­ri­cat­ing a case against him.” We post­ed two or three sen­tences to the web­site in real time. Who was tak­en, where they were tak­en, and what the offi­cials said. This is how we broke down the news­pa­per tem­plate and the con­cept of a fin­ished arti­cle. A whole new lev­el of agili­ty has emerged. Then it became the norm.

Ana­lyt­i­cal and expert jour­nal­ism increas­ing­ly forces one to inter­sect with the activ­i­ties of civ­il soci­ety. When the top­ics of human rights, ecol­o­gy, and edu­ca­tion come up, jour­nal­ists find them­selves along­side activists. In your case, are these sit­u­a­tions the result of syn­er­gy and coop­er­a­tion, or mere coin­ci­dences of tac­tics?

Except for what I did in the BAJ, I have nev­er been a civic activist. I am con­vinced that jour­nal­ism and activism should be sep­a­rate. Media out­lets lose their objec­tiv­i­ty and impar­tial­i­ty when they serve a polit­i­cal or ide­o­log­i­cal force or orga­ni­za­tion.

Yes, it’s com­mon for an author or edi­to­r­i­al board to have a civic posi­tion, but that can­not take prece­dence over pro­fes­sion­al duty.

How­ev­er, I active­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed with the third sec­tor on edu­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tives. I con­duct­ed train­ing ses­sions and sem­i­nars for activists from var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions. For instance, the Green Net­work and oth­er ini­tia­tives and move­ments that sought to devel­op their web­sites. They often lacked pro­fes­sion­al­ism. The texts were either over­ly sim­pli­fied or high­ly spe­cial­ized and agi­ta­tion­al. So, I taught them how to cre­ate high-qual­i­ty media prod­ucts. This cre­at­ed a nat­ur­al syn­er­gy. We in the media were like men­tors; they were the new com­mu­ni­ca­tors of civ­il soci­ety.

Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki con­ducts jour­nal­ism train­ing. 2011. Pho­to: from per­son­al archive

But how can the media remain inde­pen­dent if soci­ety expects them to defend it? How can they avoid becom­ing trapped in their ivory tow­ers?

The cen­tral con­tra­dic­tion lies in the rela­tion­ship between the media and the state’s bureau­crat­ic appa­ra­tus. Even in demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­tries, politi­cians try to con­trol the media. Look at the Trump team. This prob­lem is acute world­wide. When it comes to pub­lic rela­tions, jour­nal­ists are in con­trol.

We need to be pop­u­lar, but not pop­ulist. There’s a very thin line between the two. Today, it’s easy to be tempt­ed by click­bait and flashy head­lines. Some­times, on YouTube, my com­ments and inter­views appear under head­lines like “Shock­ing: Klask­ous­ki smears dic­ta­tor.” Even though I was sim­ply break­ing down the nuances of a polit­i­cal plot. This head­line cry is a seri­ous ill­ness of the likes era.

Calling evil by its name is not propaganda; it’s a moral stance

Alright, so the 1990s were an era of dis­cov­ery, while the 2020s marked the age of tri­al. Emo­tions were run­ning high, and the infor­ma­tion train was filled with pain and resent­ment. Has jour­nal­ism man­aged to avoid becom­ing a mech­a­nism of demo­c­ra­t­ic pro­pa­gan­da and agi­ta­tion? Or is this trans­for­ma­tion inevitable?

This prob­lem was sharp­er in the past, when bar­ri­cade think­ing and the thrill of polit­i­cal strug­gle pre­vailed. By the time of the last cri­sis, the most pop­u­lar Belaru­sian media out­lets had matured, and a pro­fes­sion­al approach had become the norm. How­ev­er, the nick­name “Nation­al TV Inside Out” was assigned to cer­tain edi­to­r­i­al offices. In oth­er words, they repro­duced good old hand-to-hand pro­pa­gan­da — with the same super task: anni­hi­lat­ing the polit­i­cal oppo­nent.

Bela­PAN and TUT.by, for instance, had a dis­tinct approach. They did not dis­miss sharp, dan­ger­ous top­ics.

Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki. Vil­nius, Sep­tem­ber 2023. Pho­to: BAJ

In 2020, we cov­ered large crowds tak­ing to the streets and thus debunked the pro­pa­gan­da myth that they were “just a bunch of drug addicts and pros­ti­tutes.” We report­ed on the beat­ings that took place in deten­tion cen­ters. Call­ing evil by its name is not pro­pa­gan­da; it’s a moral stance.

I am proud of my col­leagues. They were lit­er­al­ly on the front lines. They were detained too, and not one of them changed pro­fes­sions, even as every­thing fell apart. We kept up with the bar by ver­i­fy­ing and sep­a­rat­ing facts from emo­tions.

We were just doing our job, yet we were labeled “extrem­ists” for it. Sev­er­al of my col­leagues received lengthy prison sen­tences. We were caught in the cross­fire and became tar­gets pre­cise­ly because we were ful­fill­ing a pro­fes­sion­al duty.

It’s impos­si­ble to emerge from such a sit­u­a­tion with­out los­ing some­thing. What did jour­nal­ism lose in the after­math of the blow? I mean not only shat­tered lives, but also pro­fes­sion­al loss­es — like the ero­sion of author­ship. Anonymiza­tion can be a form of pro­tec­tion, but it might also lead to inter­nal cen­sor­ship, right?

I have always been skep­ti­cal of anonymi­ty or pseu­do­nyms. I have seen them used to hide clum­sy work, slan­der, and dig­ging on some­one. The author feels that they are doing some­thing wrong and there­fore pre­serves their anonymi­ty.

How­ev­er, after 2020, the sit­u­a­tion changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly, and jour­nal­ists began fac­ing sys­tem­at­ic pros­e­cu­tion. Even if some­one is in forced exile, their fam­i­lies are still back home. As you know, even abroad, the regime is try­ing to harass its polit­i­cal ene­mies. There­fore, I under­stand entire­ly the near-total anonymi­ty. How­ev­er, I admit that it does not pro­mote pro­fes­sion­al skills.

How did it affect you per­son­al­ly?

On the one hand, work­ing with an open visor makes you stand out and improves qual­i­ty. It’s embar­rass­ing to pro­duce clum­sy texts. On the oth­er hand, this choice costs me a lot. Now, I am on the list of “mem­bers of an extrem­ist enti­ty.” They have even put me on the want­ed list in Rus­sia. But it’s my choice.

If a media stan­dard for the cri­sis peri­od were being cre­at­ed today, what ele­ments should it encom­pass?

The first point would be: “Have a back­up plat­form.” This is the result of our cru­el and painful expe­ri­ence. Sev­er­al edi­to­r­i­al teams, includ­ing ours, lost their mir­ror sites and back­up servers. The police arrived and seized every­thing, caus­ing the con­tents to dis­ap­pear.

It’s clear now: We need to pre­pare for the worst. In this day and age, the rules of jour­nal­ism, like mil­i­tary reg­u­la­tions, are writ­ten in blood. Media out­lets that had pre­vi­ous­ly estab­lished an alter­nate air­field in Lithua­nia or Poland found it eas­i­er to emi­grate. Oth­ers start­ed from scratch, lack­ing equip­ment, a base, and a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the team. Yet, many have been revived. It was a test, but also a les­son.

You are cur­rent­ly work­ing at Pozirk and resid­ing in exile. How did the news­room trans­fer its rhythm, stan­dards, and experts into a new real­i­ty?

In fact, it start­ed as the exiled rein­car­na­tion of Bela­PAN. It was part­ly the same peo­ple, with the same way of think­ing and pro­fes­sion­al code of con­duct. We have moved on and expand­ed our ranks, but we main­tain tra­di­tions: pro­vid­ing prompt and com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion about events and ana­lyt­i­cal expla­na­tions of what is hap­pen­ing in Belarus and beyond.

In many ways, we had to rebuild every­thing from scratch. The hard­est part is los­ing con­tacts with­in the coun­try. We can no longer work “in the thick of things.” I had to mas­ter remote jour­nal­ism and take greater care with infor­ma­tion secu­ri­ty, web­site and cor­po­rate data pro­tec­tion. It isn’t easy, but it is nec­es­sary. It is equal­ly impor­tant to write and take care of peo­ple now.

Andrei Bas­tunets presents Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki with a diplo­ma for win­ning the “Vol­na­je slo­va” com­pe­ti­tion. Vil­nius, Sep­tem­ber 2023. Pho­to: BAJ

But in such con­di­tions, the very foun­da­tion of the pro­fes­sion is under­mined — the con­nec­tion with the read­er. How can it be com­pen­sat­ed for? What replaces the liv­ing pulse of the audi­ence?

Not every­thing is lost. Belaru­sians have fig­ured out how to get around inter­net restric­tions. They use VPNs, access us via mir­ror sites and Telegram chan­nels, and find us on social media. Every jour­nal­ist has per­son­al con­tacts in Belarus. Every­day con­ver­sa­tions and per­son­al tes­ti­monies pro­vide a liv­ing con­nec­tion “to the earth.” There­fore, even if we write from Vil­nius or War­saw, we feel the pulse of the coun­try.

Dur­ing Brezhnev’s era, I recall tun­ing in to “ene­my voic­es.” In a sense, these were our pre­de­ces­sors. Even though they had been liv­ing in exile for many years, we eager­ly caught the waves. After all, they pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion that the com­mu­nist press had sup­pressed. The truth is once again elu­sive: state media is not a reli­able source of infor­ma­tion. We fill the space where pro­pa­gan­da is silent or spread­ing lies.

After all the expe­ri­ences, loss­es, and vic­to­ries, what stays in your heart? Is jour­nal­ism now a pro­fes­sion, a ser­vice, or a mis­sion for you?

It’s not so much a craft, although that’s impor­tant, as it is a way of life.

It’s impos­si­ble to work as a 9‑to‑5 jour­nal­ist enjoy­ing a relaxed lunch break. After all, devel­op­ments know no breaks. I learned about the release of a group of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers while I was on a bike trip out­side the city. I rushed to my com­put­er as fast as an Olympic ath­lete. The arti­cle was cre­at­ed on wheels, lit­er­al­ly. Our busi­ness is raw nerves, com­bat readi­ness, and the courage to speak truth­ful­ly.

Fer­vent­ly speak­ing, you only achieve some­thing when jour­nal­ism becomes your life, your mis­sion. Yes, it poi­sons. But it’s a poi­son with a sweet taste of free­dom.

The project “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” is co-financed by the Pol­ish Coop­er­a­tion for Devel­op­ment Pro­gram of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Poland. The pub­li­ca­tion reflects exclu­sive­ly the author’s views and can­not be equat­ed with the offi­cial posi­tion of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Poland.

[1] Ales Adamovich was a Sovi­et Belaru­sian writer, screen­writer, lit­er­ary crit­ic and demo­c­ra­t­ic activist.

[2] A Belaru­sian politi­cian who served as the first head of state of inde­pen­dent Belarus after it seced­ed from the Sovi­et Union, serv­ing as the first chair­man of the Supreme Sovi­et from 1991 to 1994.

[3] A line from the Inter­na­tion­al Pro­le­tar­i­an Anthem; the anthem of com­mu­nist par­ties, social­ists, and anar­chists; the offi­cial anthem of the USSR (1922–1944).

[4] A promi­nent pro­pa­gan­dist of the regime of Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka.

[5] The Prae­to­ri­an Guard was an elite unit that served as the per­son­al body­guard for Roman emper­ors.

[6] Vasil Bykau was a promi­nent Belaru­sian dis­si­dent and author of nov­els and novel­las about World War II.

[7] A Land­sknecht was a Ger­man mer­ce­nary pike­man of the late 15th and ear­ly 16th cen­turies. They fought in numer­ous con­flicts across Europe, and they were high­ly esteemed.

[8] Krym­nashism (from the Russ­ian slo­gan «Крым наш», “Crimea is ours”) is a polit­i­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal term that describes the nation­al­ist, impe­ri­al­ist, and chau­vin­ist world­view that emerged in Rus­sia after its annex­a­tion of Crimea in 2014.