US-funded media outlet 'Current Time' fires journalist for appearing on YouTube show to discuss …

On Thursday, reporters learned that the Russian-language television channel Current Time, created by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and funded by the U.S. Congress, has fired journalist Timur Olevsky for an unauthorized appearance last month on columnist Oleg Kashin’s YouTube show. Sources told the websites Mediazona and MBK Media that Olevsky violated his work contract by joining Kashin’s broadcast without his editors’ permission. Meduza summarizes the scandal.Firing Olevsky is a big deal in Russia’s small journalist community for at least two reasons: (1) he worked for a Washington-funded media outlet, and (2) his interactions with Oleg Kashin facilitated a conspiracy theory against opposition figure Alexey Navalny’s wife. In other words, Current Time dismissed Timur Olevsky after he criticized the Navalnys — a publicity nightmare for everyone except pro-Kremlin pundits like Russia Today editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, who immediately reported the story as evidence of American hypocrisy. The backstoryOn October 5, 2020, superstar YouTuber Yury Dud published a more-than-two-hour interview with the Navalnys. An hour and 45 minutes into the video, Dud asks Navalnaya if her father ever worked for Russia’s military intelligence, as some online rumors allege. She denies the rumor, explains that her father died years ago, and blames celebrity Ksenia Sobchak for…
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