What It’s Like to Cover the Tsarnaev Trial for a Russian Audience
Fatima Tlisova’s reporting on the first day of the Boston Marathon bombing trial elicited a big response from her audience in her home country of Russia.
“When I first tweeted that Dhzokhar Tsarnaev is not wearing a robe, that he’s not separated from the room by a cage [as is common in Russian trials], that he is not wearing handcuffs, people responded rapidly,’’ she said. “In Russia, everything about this trial is amazing.’’
Tlisova is covering the Boston Marathon bombing for the Russian service of Voice of America, the U.S. government’s international news service. The story is being followed closely in her home country, she said, and especially in her home region of the Caucasus, to which the defendant, Tsarnaev, traces his roots and where he lived briefly as a child.
Tlisova’s career has focused extensively on the complexities of the Caucasus. She has reported on the rise of insurgent militarism in the area—and the regional and national governments’ attempts to squelch it. She has described being beaten, kidnapped, and arrested several times by authorites there. She left Russia for the United States in 2007.
From abroad, she still covers the region closely. “Since I was working in the Caucasus region for so long, they decided I should keep an eye on the region from here, too,’’ she said.
With the Tsarnaev story, the equation has been thrown inside out. Her expertise on the Caucasus has helped inform her reporting on the American case. She has reported on the Tsarnaev family and Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s trip to the region in 2012.
Based on what she’s read and the feedback she’s received, Tlisova said, Russian perspectives on the Tsarnaevs have shifted over time.
“During the time right after the marathon, a major response was: ‘It’s a conspiracy by the American government,’’’ she said. “It was absolutely unbelieveable how many believed in those theories, and how many still do.’’
One example: In January, a satirical website said Tsarnaev had either slipped on a banana peel in prison or had been beaten by white supremacists, and that he may never be able to speak again. Tlisova said she received a message from a Russian who took the article seriously, and believed the made-up injury was part of a real conspiracy. (Of course, some Americans have offered conspiracy theories as well.)
But, she said, not all conspiracies involve the U.S. In the Caucasus, where many people are distrustful of the Russian government, she said that some people believed the Kremlin—rather than the U.S.—framed the Tsarnaevs to make the region look bad.
However, Tlisova said more and more of her audience has come to believe Tsarnaev may be guilty as more information came out. And that was even before his trial began with his attorney, Judy Clarke, saying: “It was him.’’
“After I started tweeting the details, the testimonies of all the survivors, responses like ‘these people were all actors who lost their legs long before [the bombing] happened’—those kinds of responses became very, very rare,’’ she said.
She said she also recently received a message from a Russian citizen who believed some in Russia may feel grateful the Tsarnaevs targeted the U.S. rather than Russia. And she said that some members of the region’s extremist groups may hold the Tsarnaev brothers in high regard. “But that’s a minority,’’ she said.
Tlisova has been a subject of conspiracy theories herself. Voice of America is U.S.-government funded, which invites scrutiny from some readers. Tlisova said some of her audience consists of those actively seeking validation for their pre-existing suspicions that the service is propaganda. “From the very beginning, they have accused me of being a liar, of trying to cover up for the American government,’’ she said.
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