Global news media said they were temporarily suspending reporting in Russia to protect their journalists after a new law cracking down on foreign news outlets was passed that threatened jail terms of up to 15 years for spreading “fake news”.
Britain’s BBC said Friday it had temporarily halted reporting in Russia, and by the end of the day, the Canadian Broadcasting Company and Bloomberg News said their journalists were also stopping work. CNN and CBS News said they would stop broadcasting in Russia, and other outlets removed Russian-based journalists’ bylines as they assessed the situation.
Tim Davie, the BBC’s director-general, said the legislation “appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism” in Russia, while a CNN spokesperson said “we continue to evaluate the situation and our next steps moving forward”.
US television newscaster ABC News said it would pause broadcasting from Russia as it assessed the situation. The Washington Post, Dow Jones and Reuters said they were evaluating the new media law and the situation.
The new law, passed on Friday, makes intentionally spreading “fake” or “false” news about the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine a criminal offence. President Valdimir Putin approved the new law on Friday evening, according to the Tass state news agency.
It came after the Kremlin accused the BBC of playing a “determined role in undermining the Russian stability and security”.
Davie said: “This legislation appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism. It leaves us no other option than to temporarily suspend the work of all BBC News journalists and their support staff within the Russian Federation while we assess the full implications of this unwelcome development.
“Our BBC News service in Russian will continue to operate from outside Russia.
“The safety of our staff is paramount and we are not prepared to expose them to the risk of criminal prosecution simply for doing their jobs. I’d like to pay tribute to all of them, for their bravery, determination and professionalism.
“We remain committed to making accurate, independent information available to audiences around the world, including the millions of Russians who use our news services. Our journalists in Ukraine and around the world will continue to report on the invasion of Ukraine.”
Jonathan Munro, interim director of BBC News, tweeted: “We are not pulling out @BBCNews journalists from Moscow … We cannot use their reporting for the time being but they remain valued members of our teams and we hope to get them back on our output as soon as possible.”
Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief John Micklethwait said: “The change to the criminal code, which seems designed to turn any independent reporter into a criminal purely by association, makes it impossible to continue any semblance of normal journalism inside the country.”
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation also said that it had temporarily suspended its reporting inside Russia due to the new law.
“The CBC is very concerned about new legislation passed in Russia, which appears to criminalise independent reporting on the current situation in Ukraine and Russia,” it said in a statement posted online.
As well as making the publication of “fake news” punishable by up to 15 years in jail, the new law would also make it an offence to call for sanctions against Russia.
“Our top priorities are the safety of our employees and covering this important story fairly and fully,” said Dow Jones spokesperson Steve Severinghaus. “Being in Moscow, freely able to talk to officials and capture the mood, is key to that mission.”
Russian officials have repeatedly said that false information has been spread by the US and its western European allies in an attempt to sow discord among the Russian people.
The new legislation was drafted by Russia’s upper house of parliament and signed into law by Putin, TASS reported.
“This law will force punishment – and very tough punishment – on those who lied and made statements which discredited our armed forces,” the chair of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said.
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the media companies’ moves to suspend reporting.
Putin insists that Russia’s “special military operation” is essential to ensure its security after the expansion of the Nato military alliance to Russia’s borders and US support for pro-western leaders in Kyiv.
Russian officials do not use the word “invasion” and say western media have failed to report on what they cast as the “genocide” of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine.
The Russian authorities have also cut access to several foreign news organisations’ websites, including the BBC and Deutsche Welle, for spreading what they alleged was false information about its war in Ukraine.
“Access has been restricted to a host of information resources owned by foreigners,” the state communications watchdog, known as Roskomnadzor, said in a statement.
On Friday night the regulator said it had also blocked Facebook in response to what it said were restrictions of access to Russian media on its platform. Roskomnadzor said there had been 26 cases of discrimination against Russian media by Facebook since October 2020, with access restricted to state-backed channels like RT and the RIA news agency.
Liz Truss, the UK foreign secretary, warned earlier this week that the BBC risked being banned in Russia if the Kremlin-backed RT news channel, previously known as Russia Today, was shut down in the UK.
Meanwhile, the owner of Facebook and Instagram said on Friday that it was blocking the Russian state-backed news services Russia Today and Sputnik in the UK. The announcement came before the Russian move to block Facebook. On Thursday the UK culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, published a letter urging TikTok, Twitter and Facebook’s parent, Meta, to block RT and Sputnik. Meta has already blocked the news organisations across the EU.
“Earlier this week, we announced that we’d be restricting access to RT and Sputnik across the EU. Consistent with that action, and following a request from the UK government, we will also be restricting access to RT and Sputnik in the UK at this time,” said a Meta spokesperson.
Reuters contributed to this report