THE END OF THE EXILE? The crackdown on Russian media is a familiar story. Certainly, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and particularly the Washington Post are quick to hurl charges of authoritarianism, autocracy, even Stalinism at the Kremlin and Putin whenever free speech in Russia is threatened. So why haven't all those influential mainstream newspapers reported on the silencing of Moscow's English-language alt-newspaper The eXile?

The eXile was forced to shut down June 11 after a surprise on-site audit by the Russian authorities. There are different theories as to why those authorities moved against the paper at this time. Some believe the crackdown was connected to the newspaper's regular columnist, Eduard Limonov, a radical opposition leader, or to an ongoing clan war in the Kremlin that the paper had been reporting on. But the explanation is less important than the silence of the American media.

Launched in 1997, the tabloid rocked Moscow's expat community with a mix of gonzo-style journalism, meticulous reporting, hard-hitting political analysis, quirky columns and sophomoric, often scatological humor. There was also a seriousness of purpose. Co-founders Matt Taibbi, now a correspondent for Rolling Stone, and Mark Ames scrutinized and exposed what they saw as inaccurate and ideologically slanted reporting by US correspondents in Moscow, especially their apologias for the misery caused by the US-backed shock-therapy reforms in the Boris Yeltsin years. The eXile's annual "Worst Foreign Correspondent in Moscow" contest was dreaded by many--and cheered by a few, including this magazine. (For an example of their keen press criticism, see Taibbi and Ames's "The Journal's Russia Scandal" in the October 4, 1999, issue of The Nation.) The eXile was an equal-opportunity critic, contemptuous as well of US academics who took the same line.

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