His Majesty King Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands on Thursday visited the Amsterdam newsrooms of The Moscow Times and the independent Russian news broadcaster TV Rain.
In a meeting open to the press, the King was joined by The Moscow Times founder Derk Sauer and publisher Alexander Gubsky as well as TV Rain editor-in-chief Tikhon Dzyadko to discuss the state of Russian journalism both in The Netherlands and abroad.
Among the topics addressed were issues of effectively combatting the Kremlin’s multibillion-dollar propaganda machine, which King Willem-Alexander dubbed “a strong weapon” in the hands of the Kremlin.
The group also discussed effective distribution of news inside Russia, the safety of journalists remaining on the ground and those in exile, the media landscape in Russia’s regions and the urgent need to find sustainable funding for newsroom operations amid shrinking avenues for monetization.
Sauer and Gubsky expressed gratitude to the King and members of the Dutch government for aiding the relocation of 80 Russian journalists to The Netherlands following the invasion of Ukraine and for making an invaluable contribution to keeping the school of independent Russian journalism alive.
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