CNN announced Friday it would halt its broadcasts in Russia as the country launches a full-on assault against media organizations, according to CNN reporter Oliver Darcy. The network will “continue to evaluate the situation and our next steps moving forward,” Darcy said in a tweet. Bloomberg News also announced that it would stop work in the country in light of a new law that criminalizes media reports that go against the Kremlin’s narrative. “The change to the criminal code, which seems designed to turn any independent reporter into a criminal purely by association, makes it impossible to continue any semblance of normal journalism inside the country,” Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait said Friday. The BBC has also suspended all work. The new law, passed Friday, would impose jail sentences of up to 15 years on people who publish what the Russian government deems to be “false” information on the war in Ukraine. That “information” is subject to the approval of the Kremlin, effectively preventing independent outlets from reporting on the conflict.
