Media Studies: Does Anyone Check A Story About Gay Russia?

A Russian newspaper has been accused of breaking the country's "gay propaganda" law because it published a news story about a teacher who was fired because of his sexual orientation.

The state's media watchdog, the Federal Mass Media Inspection Service (FMMIS), sent the editor-in-chief of the Molodoi Dalnevostochnik a notice claiming the item propagated homosexual relations.

It followed a report in the paper, based in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk, that included an interview with geography teacher Alexander Yermoshkin about the circumstances of his dismissal (see details in this Moscow Times article).

Fagburn asked Roy Greenslade - self-styled "professor of journalism" - how he checked this story.

He didn't.