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Par Alan Devenish

Wired

The Olympics sparked a deep examination by U.S. media of Russia’s policies and politics, so it’s eye-opening to see how the country’s own media operates. Photographer M. Scott Brauer spent a month painstakingly documenting Russia’s journalism industry and found that, visually, at least, it is indistinguishable from media in the U.S.

There is, however, one vital difference. In Russia it’s all about the press conference. It’s the primary means of getting anything out of the country’s power structure.

“There’s no such thing as exclusive access to a politician or to a business. There’s no ‘behind the scenes,’” says Brauer. “For the media, everything is very manufactured and controlled. Everything I saw of the work that this state-owned wire service did was all through very official events.”