Meduza

Meduza () is a Riga-based online newspaper and news aggregator in the Russian language, created by Galina Timchenko, the former editor-in-chief of Russian news website Lenta.ru. The project started on October 20, 2014. Free mobile applications for iOS, Windows Phone and Android became the basis of the media.
Conception.
"Meduza" started as an aggregator of news, texts and podcasts in Russian that are selected manually, unlike the automatic rankings of Yandex News. The main criterion for publication of content was the relevance and reliability of the information, not the status of the source. 
As of 2021, "Meduza" publishes many of its own articles, including investigative journalism.
History.
In 2014, Galina Timchenko was fired from her job as chief editor at Lenta.ru and launched the new webpage Meduza in October 2014. Several former journalists of Lenta.ru joined the new online site.
Timchenko told "Forbes" that the decision to base "Meduza" in Latvia was made since "right now, establishing an independent Russian language publishing house in Latvia is possible, while in Russia it is not." Moreover, Timchenko stated: “We understood that in Russia, most likely, they would not let us work".
Russian businessman and former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and telecommunications magnate Boris Zimin had been considered as passive investors, but they parted ways "for strategic and operational reasons". Because of financial reasons, Timchenko and her partner at Amond & Smith Ltd, Sergey Nazarkin, based Meduza in Latvia.
In February 2015, the website also launched an English-language version. In January 2016, founder and CEO Galina Timchenko handed over the role of chief editor to her deputy Ivan Kolpakov. In November 2018, Kolpakov announced his resignation due to a sexual harassment scandal. He was reinstated as chief editor on March 11, 2019. 
In August 2018, Meduza started a partnership with the American website BuzzFeed. The partnership includes publishing each other’s materials, sharing experiences, and carrying out and publishing joint investigations.
In 2019, Meduza started the English podcast The Naked Pravda, which highlights how Meduza’s top reporting intersects with the wider research and expertise that exists about Russia.
Structure.
"Meduza" is run by a team of around 20 journalists who resigned from their jobs at Lenta.ru following Galina Timchenko's unexpected removal from her post by the website's owner and Vladimir Putin supporter, the oligarch Alexander Mamut. There are no Latvian journalists in the project.
Since March 2015, Meduza has published daily news called “Evening Meduza”.
Audience.
Three months after opening, Meduza had 1.3 million monthly readers of its Internet publication. In 2017, Meduza had 7.5 million readers per month and 2 million followers on social media. In 2020, Meduza was the leader in social media citations in the rating compiled by , a company that monitors and analyzes media and social networks.
Censorship.
According to Timchenko, "Meduza" will not only serve as an aggregator but will also produce its own content. So it aims to fill a market niche that exists due to "a long list of forbidden topics which Russian media do not raise for various reasons—due to direct and indirect censorship."
The day after it was launched, "Meduza" was blocked in Kazakhstan, probably due to an article about the city of Oskemen (Ust-Kamenogorsk). 
Access to the site has also been blocked from Uzbekistan. The reasons for this are unclear.
Meduza has installed technical measures to circumvent censorship with their mobile apps.
In June 2019, Meduza journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested by Russian police for claimed drug offences. Colleagues and friends of Golunov said they believed the charges to be fabricated, motivated by his investigations into corruption. Following a public outcry, Golunov was released, and five police officers were fired and later arrested.
On April 23, 2021, the Russian Ministry of Justice designated Meduza as a 'foreign agent'. In response, the European Union rejected the decision, saying this restriction "goes against Russia's international obligations and human rights commitments".