In awarding a share of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to Russian newspaper editor Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov, the Prize Committee stated that Muratov "has for decades defended freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions. In 1993, he was one of the founders of the independent newspaper Novaja Gazeta. Since 1995 he has been the newspaper’s editor-in-chief for a total of 24 years. Novaja Gazeta is the most independent newspaper in Russia today, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power."

    Words well put.  Although many of us complain about what newspapers do or do not publish, we nonetheless err seriously if we use these objections to assert that a particular newspaper should be shut down.  We're only hurting ourselves and our ability to make informed decisions about the world.

    

    That said, as the Nobel Committee observed, Muratov's newspaper (Novaja Gazette) presents a "fundamentally critical attitude toward power."  Although we all desire, and legitimately so, some degree of power and control over our lives, if we suppose that power, be it political, economic, or personal, is all we need to be free, we become prisoners all over again.  It's one of the greatest myths of all.

    Power is only as potent as the truth, the truth, that is, of that which reality is ultimately comprised, it conveys.

    Keep on trucking, Mr. Muratov.