Ann Simmons, a leading journalist on Russia since the 1990s, joins Harvard’s Institute of Politics as a Spring fellow from the Wall Street Journal, where she served as Moscow bureau chief from 2018 to 2024. Simmons was in Moscow when her colleague Evan Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 and covered much of his subsequent hearings and release. Previously, she worked at the LA Times on the video and multimedia team and as the Johannesburg Bureau Chief. The HPR sat down Simmons to discuss her experience reporting in Russia, the role of journalism in democracy, and the evolution of the field of journalism.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Harvard Political Review: Throughout your career, you’ve had extensive experience with on-site reporting across the world. How do you think international and field reporting has changed since you first went to Russia in the 1990s? How do these changes reflect larger trends in the journalism industry?
Ann Simmons: In the not-so-distant past, journalists seem to have had this sense of immunity. If you were a journalist, you were there to report the news and not seen as taking any sides, so you could move between rebel groups, government groups, the regular population, without the fear of being kidnapped or targeted. I spent five years on the African continent covering several different conflicts, and I could move between rebel groups without fear for being a journalist.
When I first went to Russia as a reporter in the early 1990s, it was still a very closed society. At the time, Western reporters had to tell the minister of foreign affairs if they were going to travel 40 kilometers outside of Moscow, and you could only do that with permission. We were very much restricted. We were followed in a very open way.
Fast forward after Glasnost and Perestroika and President Gorbachev, there was more of an opening up. I remember in the very beginning, no one would want to speak to you because you’re a Westerner or a foreigner; they could get into trouble. After the demise of the Soviet Union, it was as though everyone wanted to talk to you. I remember stopping someone for a ‘man on the street’ interview, and five other people came up to give their opinion, which was absolutely unheard of under communism.
Fast forward again to the time of President Putin, when I arrived in 2018 for The Wall Street Journal. In the eyes of the Russian authorities, the Western press is not to be trusted and is not a friend, and that is what is relayed to the population. Nevertheless, people were still quite open, depending on the subject matter. Once the war [in Ukraine] started, that totally changed. Journalists, especially those from the West, were public enemy number one. You were not to speak to journalists. The narrative about the hostility of the Western reporter and the fact that the Western reporter did not have Russia’s interest at heart went into overdrive.
Now, in journalism, wherever you are, journalists can be kidnapped. Journalists need global security. When I was there in the ‘90s, we didn’t have a global security team because you didn’t expect to be targeted. But now, most major news organizations have global security teams that you’ve got to check in with wherever you go on the hour every hour. If you miss a check-in, which is what happened to Evan [Gershkovich], we knew something must have been wrong.
HPR: What do you believe are the most important qualities when reporting on the ground that allow you to connect with local individuals so that you hear different first-hand perspectives on a situation?
AS: You have to be open-minded and be a good listener. It also helps to have something to break the ice. I speak Russian, but if I were in another country where I didn’t speak the language, even if you have two words in a foreign language, that would be an immediate icebreaker because they feel ‘okay, this person is trying to engage with me.’
One attribute is not being too pushy, being able to understand if someone says, ‘No,’ then you move on. You do not pressure people to speak to you, and you’ve got to be patient. When I was based in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, I used to build in about two hours for reporting one person because I became almost like not just a sounding board, but a counselor. People were so overwhelmed, so you had to leave time for them just to get off their chest the fact that, ‘Oh, I’ve lost all of my belongings. My house was flooded up to the eaves.’ You may have been there to interview them about something else, but everyone needed to get something off their chest.
You have to have this insatiable appetite for reading and knowledge and listening. You’ve also got to be willing to be objective. You’re not there to take sides. You may have your personal feelings. Everyone comes to a particular story with certain baggage or certain beliefs or kind of preconceptions. As a journalist, you’ve got to put those aside and be willing to listen to things that you may not agree with. You’re gathering information and facts that you can share with your readers and write a story so that they can be well-informed and make their own judgments.
HPR: You were in Moscow for the Wall Street Journal when your colleague Evan Gershkovich was imprisoned. What was that experience like for you, and how did that affect your biases when reporting?
AS: I was pulled out of Russia the day after Evan was detained by my company for security reasons. They did not want to take a chance that maybe I would be picked up or any of the staff in the Moscow bureau would be detrimentally impacted by what had happened. I continue to cover Russia from London, and it is difficult. You know, the Russian authorities have taken one of your colleagues, and you still have to write about Russia and be objective and impartial.
I covered a lot of the stories of Evan’s hearings as a journalist. I wasn’t advocating for him at the same time — the Wall Street Journal launched a terrific advocacy campaign to get him freed, and thank God he was — I was not actively participating in that because I was covering the story. I had to separate myself from the emotions that, ‘my goodness, how could this be happening,’ but also listen to the Russian government. I still put their side of the story into the stories seeking comment from the Kremlin and from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was challenging because it was personal then, but you have to try and separate yourself if you’re practicing good journalism.
HPR: You have worked in video and multimedia journalism during your career as well. How has this style shifted considering the rise of short-form video content and social media?
AS: We’ve got to be very selective now in what we write about and how we present content because attention spans has diminished. It’s got to be short and snappy and to the point while still trying to educate people and trying to make sure that people have the right facts.
I think that the industry is under attack because there’s so much misinformation out there, and it’s so easy to generate that misinformation that spreads like wildfire across social media. Once it’s out there in the media sphere, it’s really hard to rein that back in. So I do think we still need this stopgap, this system of legacy media that — and all media should do this — adheres to ethics and standards but is also able to crunch its content, its long form journalism, into shorter, kind of snippets.
HPR: To what degree do you see the role of journalism as the ‘fourth branch’ in the checks and balances of governmental systems?
AS: I think journalists need to play that role of making sure there are checks and balances, especially in terms of government, because we’re not the government. We’re not there to police but to ensure accountability, and I think that’s really, really important.
When you’re in a good newsroom, a journalist knows that you’ve got to have at least three sources before you put anything down. You need to make sure that it’s fact. We do have conversations on background if it’s a higher official. But even then, those stories still have had two other sources attached to them that know the same thing that you’re citing on background. So it’s not just a one-source story.
I think a journalist’s job is to make sure that whatever they produce is accurate and factual. To take government leaders and officials to task if we realize that, no, you’re stating ‘x’ and it’s actually ‘y,’ but we have to have our concrete evidence there that goes back to really good research. This is a journalist’s role, even more so today, not just with the new administration in the United States but everywhere because there is so much information coming from all different directions, and it is about ensuring accountability.
HPR: What impact do you hope your work has left on your readers? Is there a project or article you are particularly proud of?
AS: I know I’ve had an impact when I get letters from readers. For example, when I was based in Nairobi, I traveled to northern Uganda to write about child soldiers. These soldiers were very young, from seven to 15. They had been strong-armed, coerced into killing people, into joining the rebels, because if they didn’t join, they were going to see their mother’s throat cut or something like that. I was doing the story about them being rescued, and so I went to a facility, an orphanage where they were being cared for. I remember, after writing about these young people who were trying to turn their lives around, who had been helped to turn their lives around. There was just an influx of, ‘Where do I send a donation? How can I help?’
The same thing occurred when I went to Jordan to do a story about Syrian refugees there. This family from Aleppo was forced to flee their home. So many people wanted to write in to help, and I feel that’s when you know that people are listening.
It doesn’t always have to be good news. Even when people write back and criticize what I have written, that, to me, is rewarding because it means that someone has read my story and I’ve gotten someone thinking. The idea that I’ve provoked a discussion is also very satisfying.
