The writing of murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya continues to resonate even after her death in the fall of 2006. Her most recent work in English ,"A Russian Diary: A Journalist"s Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia" has recently been published and gives an enlightening if not searing account of political life in contemporary Russia.The failure of the political opposition, media concentration, and collapse of independent journalism are disturbing in their implications for Russian society as well as other societies including our own. This release coincides with release in Russia of her book,"Za Shto" or "Why" which is now being promoted by Mikhail Gorbachev, who is part owner of Novaya Gazetta, her former paper.Posthumously she has recieved several awards including the International Publishers' Association Freedom Prize and has an award pending from the American National Press Club in July. Vladimir Putin on the other hand was recently awarded the less coveted "Closed Oyster" award for "hampering the development of free media", the first non-German to do so.
Americans by and large don't tend to kill journalists unless of course they happen to be Serbians or work for Al-Jazeera.
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