It always presents difficulties for journalists to write about the proprietors of their own newspapers. How can they be fair? In the case of the Evening Standard's owner, Alexander Lebedev, the problem is eased by the fact that he has stuck fast to his original pledge not to interfere in editorial affairs.
So I make no apology for expressing my alarm at the treatment meted out to him yesterday in Moscow.
It raises questions, yet again, about the fragile nature of what passes for press freedom in Russia. Lebedev's bank was raided by armed and masked police commandos who barricaded the offices before departing with documents. According to official sources it was part of "a criminal investigation".
It was no such thing. As the Financial Times reported this morning, the real reason for this attempt to intimidate Lebedev centres on the publication of an article in Novaya Gazeta, the paper he owns jointly with former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev.
The paper carried a four-page interview with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil billionaire who was jailed for fraud in 2005 after falling foul of Russia's then president (and now prime minister) Vladimir Putin. Khodorkovsky, who remains a fierce opponent of the Kremlin, gave the interview at the conclusion of his latest trial on fresh fraud charges.
The bank raid was about journalism, not fraud. So Lebedev deserves support from British newspaper owners and editors who enjoy a freedom his Russian journalists do not.
