Colby College will honor Wall Street Journal Correspondent Evan Gershkovich on Friday with its Lovejoy Award for Courage in Journalism.
Gershkovich, who graduated from Bowdoin College, is currently imprisoned in Russia, accused of espionage. The Journal's World Coverage Chief, Gordon Fairclough spoke with Maine Public's Irwin Gratz about Gershkovich, who has been detained since March.
This transcript has been light edited for clarity.
Fairclough: So Evan's been held now for more than six months, being held in Lefortovo Prison in Moscow. We have tried several times to get him out on bail, essentially, or change the terms of his detention to house arrest or something easier than being in prison. All of those have been rejected by the Russian courts.
Gratz: Tell us a little bit about Evan as a reporter.
Evan's the kind of reporter I think we all want to be: tenacious, but really even-handed and principled and just really passionate about the story. Evan, came to work for us just a few weeks before the war in Ukraine started. And we hired him in Moscow. And so he had to get new accreditation and get a new visa. And we knew we were going to need to have him working. And he wouldn't be able to work in Russia without those documents. So we brought him here to the London newsroom, where he covered the start of the war. He was just was so eager once he was given the accreditation by the Russian government to get back in there and report because he just felt that giving voice to ordinary Russian people in wartime was just an incredibly important task.
Given what's happened to him, does the journal still have reporters working in Russia?
We do not. We've closed our bureau there, and we are covering Russia. We are very committed to covering Russia. And we do so quite intensively. But we have to do it from outside now.
How difficult is that?
It's been, it's really tough, you know, it's not the way you would like to cover a country. And it obviously changes the kind of coverage that you can do about a place. Unfortunately, more and more countries do seem to be really restricting access to foreign journalists. And this is, you know, added to the list. You have to find new ways into a society, right, and talking to people who are coming in and out, figuring out ways to monitor local media and talk to people who are inside the country who might be at risk for talking to you, all of this. So it takes a lot of effort.
What does it mean to you that Colby is honoring Evan with this award?
I think it's really fantastic. It is a testament to Evan's journalistic skills, and to his passionate belief in freedom of the press and the importance of journalism. I think it's just, it's so critical that we keep Evan's name in front of the public. It's really important that people keep talking about Evan, so that the Russian government knows that we're not forgetting about Even; the American people are not forgetting about Evan; people around the world are not forgetting about Evan; and that the U.S. government knows that people aren't forgetting about Evan, and that we expect the U.S. government to keep its pledge to do everything that it can to get Evan out.
Obviously the U.S .government does bear the primary responsibility for getting him released. Is there anything more that you think that we as journalists can be doing that would be helpful?
I try to think what Evan would say about that. But we can all keep writing and talking about cases like Evan's and other reporters' who are being held unjustly around the world. Last year was the worst year on record for journalists killed, journalists in prison. And we've seen in Russia and many places around the world, this kind of creeping criminalization of journalism through fake news laws, expanded espionage laws, lots of tools that are being used to silence a free press and to prevent people from asking questions of those in power. And I think part of our job as journalists is to write about those who are trying to silence us. But I also think, maybe more importantly, right, it's to keep doing the kind of great work that Evan was so committed to, to keep proving to people the importance of a free media.