Plagiarizing other people’s reporting and translating and bravery, as Closer to the Edge has done with Russian dissident and political prisoner Alexander Skobov’s closing statement and just-concluded trial, is despicable. I looked at the “About” page on their Substack and discovered this bit of sophistry as an explanation of their journalistic highway robbery:
As for sources—sure, we could lace every article with footnotes and hyperlinks, but let’s be real: a name and a citation don’t mean much in a world where half of Washington is reading scripts written by billionaires and lobbyists. Sources can be biased, corrupt, cherry-picked, or outright fabricated, and if you need proof of that, just look at the gibbering circus act that is the modern Republican Party. These are people who think “alternative facts” are a valid concept and that the guy who bankrupted a casino somehow knows how to fix the economy. You think they care about good sourcing?
Besides, bogging our writing down with a mess of citations and academic formalities would wreck the flow faster than a Senate hearing on TikTok. Our job isn’t to hand-hold people through a bibliography—we’re here to tell the story as it is, from the trenches, with all the blood, chaos, and absurdity intact. If you want a research paper, head to JSTOR. If you want the truth with its teeth bared, you’re in the right place.
It’s telling that Closer to the Edge is clueless about the egregious circumstances of Skobov’s actual trial. They paint a vivid picture of Skobov confronting the judges and other shameless Putinist law enforcement officials directly in the courtroom: “On March 21, 2025, the 67-year-old Soviet-era dissident walked into a Russian courtroom, stared down the agents of Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship, and set himself ablaze in words.”
In fact, Skobov took part in the trial via video link from an empty courtroom in Syktyvkar, while the judges meted out their verdict against him over a thousand kilometers away in Skobov’s hometown of St. Petersburg, without looking Skobov in the eye or even breathing the same air as he breathed.
So much for “tell[ing] the story as it is, from the trenches.” ||| TRR
ok but this just seems kinda unfair??
like they didn’t even steal anything? mediazona translated it first, u linked to them too. and i looked—closer to the edge says that now, they credited mediazona and fixed the thing about the court. they thought skobov was in the room and it was actually video court.
their article didn’t copy yours. it’s just more emotional and it got shared more. that’s not stealing lol that’s just writing something people connect with.
also i read their about page and it’s not even saying sources don’t matter. they’re just saying u can’t trust stuff automatically just cuz it has a source. which honestly makes sense cuz lots of official stuff lies all the time???
idk this kinda just feels like ur mad more ppl read theirs than yours.
also no one commented until now sooo maybe this wasn’t that big a deal?
Closer to the Edge only credited Mediazona and “fixed the thing about the court” because I called them on it, both here and on their Facebook page.