Truth as Resistance: Journalism Under Authoritarianism

In authoritarian systems, truth is not merely suppressed — it is treated as a direct threat to power. After his 2013 expulsion from Russia, David Satter reflects on what it means to report in an environment where investigating reality can make you a target. From probing state violence and systemic deception to confronting censorship, surveillance, and ultimately exile, he lays out the personal and professional cost of refusing to conform.

This conversation widens the lens to the system itself: how control over information becomes a tool of governance, how pressure is applied to silence inconvenient facts, and how quickly the space for independent thought can disappear. When truth is pushed out of public life, what fills the vacuum — and what does that mean for a society’s ability to think, question, and respond?

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Each talk is broadcasted live from our auditorium when it starts at 6:00pm EST on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567824218964

David Satter is an American journalist, historian, and leading Western expert on Russia’s political and moral evolution. A former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times and longtime Wall Street Journal contributor, he has spent over four decades examining Russia’s transformation from late Soviet stagnation to Putin’s authoritarian rule.

Satter is best known for his investigation of the 1999 apartment bombings, which killed nearly 300 people and paved the way for Putin’s rise. In Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State, he argued that the attacks were likely orchestrated by Russia’s own security services to create fear and justify war.

His reporting — which he calls “the original sin of Putin’s rule” — led to his expulsion from Russia in 2013. Through books such as Age of Delirium and The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep, Satter explores how deception, violence, and moral decay became pillars of modern Russian power — and why truth remains its most potent threat.

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