

The unlikely life and sudden death of The Exile, Russia’s angriest newspaper. - kitcar
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/02/exile-201002

======
hristov
The Exile is freaking brilliant. I can proudly say that I read them since
around the beginning, the year 2000. They were brutally honest and never cared
about who they might offend or the bridges they may burn or how this might
look on their resume. In short, exactly what you want in a journalist.

You can still find them at:www.exiledonline.com but unfortunately they do not
write articles as often and are a mere shadow of their former selves.

I think that the one and only truth that they were never able to admit is how
much the drugs they were taking non stop would affect their brains, and I feel
I see some of the effects in their rather reduced output nowadays.

~~~
mburney
I think the reason for the reduced output is that they were never able to
truly monetize the internet version of the paper, aside from publishing a few
books. Ames does freelance journalism now, and Taibbi writes for Rolling
Stone, so it seems like they decided to just make a living rather than try and
revive what they did in the past.

~~~
hristov
Yes I am sure that is one of the reasons too. But I do not see that much of
Ames's freelance stuff either.

But then again he could have taken an office job to pay the rent.

------
ibagrak
I, too, was an avid reader of the Exile while it lasted. I caught the tail end
of it when I and my wife came to Russia in 2006. I thought it was still
ruthless and unapologetic at the time. Thankfully there is always plenty of
stuff to be ruthless and unapologetic about in Russia, be it the 90s or the
00s.

My thoughts reading the paper were always "how could they not shoot this
down?" The pressure on journalists has grown tremendously under Putin, and the
authorities were clamping down on anything remotely resembling subversion.
Even if the authorities did not exert direct pressure, most publications would
self-censor in the fear that the security services would go after them next.

How the Exile was allowed to continue is beyond me? But judging from my wife's
magazine's intrepid reporting (published in Russia under the auspices of Ria
Novosti - the State news beast), the English language publications generally
pass under radar. She's never felt any pressure direct or otherwise to pull or
amend critical stories.

It's important to keep in mind that English language publications are a drop
in a bucket in Russia where I would say less 5% of the population can read and
understand English. It simply has zero impact on the public opinion
domestically, but it does wonders "exposing" the truth to the west, while
showing how unfettered the press is in Russia. It's just not the mainstream
press we are talking about here.

~~~
ab9
From the article: "The irony is that _The Exile_ was always far harder on
America than Russia and, by the end, was probably more widely read by Russians
than Americans."

Perhaps that's part of the reason _The Exile_ was allowed to continue for so
long.

------
tomjen3
That is sad, as they did post some interesting columns (the war nerd was
always worth reading).

Take this as a warning: do not do business in Russia.

~~~
sliverstorm
> Take this as a warning: do not go to Russia

Fixed

But seriously, does Russia have ANY redeeming features right now besides
possible tourist spots and pretty countryside?

~~~
il
Well, for one, some of the most brilliant coders I've ever spoken to have been
in Russia.

A lot of incredible web technology we in the startup scene don't hear about
comes from Russia. Unfortunately, most of it is used for spam/fraud.

~~~
narrator
I think this is the case in Russia because the odds of the government shaking
you down, taking all your stuff and then throwing you in some awful prison are
about the same whether what you're doing is perfectly legitimate or totally
illegal.

------
mburney
Amazing (and awesome) to see that several HNers are Exile fans. I always
viewed their paper as a kind of startup, except the goal being to piss off the
establishment rather than make money.

------
VladRussian
c'mon, nobody has been impaled or had his head axed (and having an American
passport does help immensely in that regard in Russia). In general there is an
unbelievably great progress on impalement made during the mere recent five
centuries in Russia (<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037824/>). Just wait a
couple thousands years more and the freedom of speech and other human rights
may start gradually coming to Russia (my beloved - the farther i'm from it,
the more beloved - Fatherland)

~~~
tomh
Um, yeah, right. I know you're kidding, but it's in really bad taste.

Having an American passport didn't help this guy from getting axed in 2004:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Klebnikov>

Having an American passport didn't help this guy get threatened repeated times
through the 90s and 2000s: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Browder>

~~~
VladRussian
Re: Klebnikov - even American passport can't stop bullet of TT.

Re: Browder - compare with the Browder's Russian lawyer fate -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Magnitsky> \- the 37 years old guy dies
after 11 month in pre-trial detention vs. "Bill Browder was expelled from
Russia as a national threat"

------
Revisor
We need more people like him, just to remind us of the absurdities we pretend
or choose not to see every day.

Is The Exile online somewhere, at least partially?

~~~
Revisor
To answer my own question: <http://exiledonline.com/the-exile-archive-page/>

------
narrator
My favorite eXile article of all time has to be "Embrace the Pain" :
[http://exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7347&IBLO...](http://exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7347&IBLOCK_ID=35)

------
emeltzer
the exile owned so hard. i wonder what the whole story is on the exchange at
the end of the article? i can't really imagine matt taibbi throwing coffee in
someone's face.

------
adelevie
What a brilliant article. I never heard of The Exile and hardly knew of
Taibbi's drug-infused past.

------
lzw
I read war nerd mostly. The rest of the paper didn't interest me so much. The
unique thing a out war nerd was that even though he was too much to take for
me, and sometimes I believed he was wrong, he presented such a different,
enlightening and refreshing perspective.

It is rare to find in America any one who is truly politically incorrect. And
the repetition ofvthe party talking points is so dreary.

But war nerd was genuinely politically incorrect.

How can you know what you think might be right if you don't test it against
some one who thinks differently, and war nerd was so very challenging for me.
Ill always thank the exile for that column.

------
korch
Big fan of the Exile here too. They had really great writing in a way, one
moment they're talking about some business scheme in some remote part of the
world, then it's about a point a classic Russian writer once made, then it's
onto some other topic. It was a glorious, anarchic splatterball of writing and
it was great!

And the the way they built themselves and their motivations to keep it going
are so far out as to be mythical. I still wonder if maybe they weren't a
classified spook project, because no way could any normal business get away
with writing about what they did from inside Russia! Someone had to have
pulled some strings on their behalf.

