Nobel Peace Prize for Dmitry Muratov,

Interesting to know that two journalists got the Nobel Peace Prize for upholding the FREEDOM of EXPRESSION. Mario Ressa and Dmitry Muratov won th Nobel peace prize. Dmitry Muratov is Putin's critic and editor of Novaya Gazeta. Several journalists working the new newspaper have been killed. Infact it has been 15 years now since Investigative Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot down in the elevator of her apartment. 

Novaya Gazeta has focused on Corruption in Putin's regime and exposed many crimes. That the paper has withstood the test of time despite Kremlin tight control on Media is admirable. It is reported that even those investigating Anna's deatjh have died. Kremlin has congratulated Muratov on the Prize Win. 

For a newspaper to be a critic of the government, it needs to have some political support. In a government with weak opposition, the news media naturally tends to align with the ruling party. If the ruling party has high acceptance among the masses, the newspaper taking an critical stand does not make the newspaper relevant to people. Even in India, many weak opposition leaders who own newspapers keep their diatribe on ruling party active even though that results in decreased circulations over time.

When incumbent government is strong, people want to listen to ruling government success and tend to ignore minor weakness. In that time, if any newspaper does not align with ruling party, it loses the readership of the neutral majority & retains only its core base. Many newspapers in India controlled by politicians have their party members subscribe to their newspaper giving them constant income and messaging through the newspapers. 

News Media starts losing its prominence when it starts pushing paid articles or starts threatening local businesses and people with threat of maligning them if money is not paid to journalists. Many journalists have become rich only by adopting such techniques. 

Novaya Gazeta of Russia was patronized by Gorbachev who gave part of his Peace Prize earnings to buy computers for the newspaper.The Nobel Peace Prize membners sad while announcing the prize that  "Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time". 

Since the 329 nominees are never made public, we do not know who else would have made the cut not succeeded. Nobel Peace prize rules mandate nominees disclosure only after 50 years. Newspapers reported that those nominated included Donald Trump, Alexei Navalny,Stacey Abrams ,Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya,Greta Thunberg and Jared Kushner.