WSJ’s “Be loud” strategy on Gershkovich

The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Beckett writes for Columbia Journalism Review about its efforts to free reporter Evan Gershkovich from a Russian prison.

Beckett writes, “Given the new dynamics in hostage-taking, the question remained how aggressive we—and our legal and commercial colleagues at Dow Jones & Co.—should be in highlighting Gershkovich’s plight and pushing the administration to act. Were discretion and caution the order of the day, or would trumpeting the injustice that had been meted out on our colleague accelerate his return?

“A phone call to a senior government official who knows this terrain provided the answer: ‘There are times to be quiet and there are times to be loud—and this is a time to be loud.’

“‘Be loud’ was adopted as a mantra. There would later be times when we turned down the volume because negotiations were at such a sensitive stage that publicity might be counterproductive. Otherwise, volume up.

“The next challenge we faced was countering the false assertion by Russian authorities that Gershkovich was a spy.”

Read more here.