On the media

The history of the media in Latvia is a fascinating story. From the simple beginnings of a Latvian-language newspaper in 1822, to strict censorship during the Soviet Russian occupation, to the media's role in the independence movement. And now today, with a fragmented on and offline Latvian media scene and Russian media in exile. Join me as we explore this.

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

On the media

Tuning in to Latvia

Latvia is a small country with a very vibrant information landscape. From nineteenth-century newspapers, to clandestine radio listening and Soviet censorship, to today’s TikTok, Facebook, and a thriving public broadcaster, the way Latvians access news reveals a lot about the country itself.

I want to explore who truly shaped the stories people have lived by here, by examining Latvian media across four chapters. First, how Latvia’s media developed: the early newspapers, radio, and television. Then, how it was distorted and controlled under Soviet occupation, and how it contributed to the struggle for independence. Afterwards, we’ll jump forward to today’s bustling online media landscape. Finally, we’ll consider something very 2020s: why Rīga has become a haven for Russian journalists who can no longer work safely in Russia.

It made me reflect on how I remembered the media in Latvia when I first arrived in the country as a diplomat exactly 30 years ago. I then started to compare those hazy memories with today’s media landscape, and also to compare Latvia’s media journey to how the media has evolved in the UK. Join me for the ride!

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Ink, voices and flickering screens

When you walk past a Latvian news kiosk like Narvesen today, it’s all very familiar to an Englishman brought up with local newsagents and WH Smith – headlines, gossip magazines, a wall of newspapers. While at school in South London, I earned pocket money by delivering newspapers to local people’s homes every day. But the story of how Latvians first got their news is much older, and much more turbulent, than that neat little kiosk suggests.

If you go back two centuries, there was no radio, no television, and certainly no social media. Only print. In 1822, a newspaper called Latviešu Avīzes (Latvian Newspapers) began appearing in Jelgava, making it one of the first regular Latvian-language papers. For everyday people, like farmers, teachers, and craftsmen, this was more than just news. It marked one of the first times the Latvian language and Latvian interests were documented as something that genuinely mattered in their own right, rather than as a footnote to someone else’s empire.

I like to picture a copy of that paper being passed around a wooden table in a country inn, read aloud to people who perhaps couldn’t read themselves – a small act of nation‑building masked as a reading of the classifieds.

Throughout the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, more newspapers and magazines emerged. They were the place where arguments over language, culture and politics were debated. By the time Latvia declared independence in 1918, this press culture helped cultivate a public that could actually envisage an independent Latvia. In the interwar years, the country had a surprisingly lively media scene for such a small state: party papers, cultural journals, satirical magazines – all the usual democratic chaos.

Then, a new voice arrived: radio.

In 1925, Latvijas Radio began broadcasting. Suddenly, news stopped being something you waited to read the next morning and became a voice in your living room. Initially, it was tightly controlled: radio news was meant to “retell” what the newspapers had already published, not break stories itself. The very first original radio news item, quite charmingly, was about the King of Sweden visiting Rīga. Not exactly revolutionary – but symbolically, Latvia was now speaking to itself over the airwaves.

Even then, conflicts arose over what that voice should sound like. In the 1930s, before Kārlis Ulmanis assumed power, only about six per cent of radio content was actually in Latvian; much of the output consisted of foreign music and programming. Latvian newspapers called for more local broadcasting, even as the government viewed radio as both a ‘window to the world’ and a tool it needed to control. The airwaves became another arena where national identity was negotiated.

And then, of course, came the great interruption.

Following the Soviet occupation in 1940, newspapers, radio, and later, television, were transformed into tools of the new authority. Editors were replaced, content was restructured, and instead of reflecting Latvian society, media were used to portray the Red Army as “liberators” and the new regime as entirely normal. On paper and on broadcast, life was meant to appear calm and orderly, even as it was being completely reorganised beneath the surface.

Yet, the habits formed during the interwar years did not disappear. People had learned to read between the lines and listen for what was left unsaid. Foreign radio stations, rumours, and whispered stories became a parallel source of information alongside the official press.

Television arrived in 1954, with Latvia being the first of the Baltic republics to launch a TV channel. It added pictures to the radio voice, but the script was still written in Moscow. News bulletins showed the world only through the approved ideological lens. Still, people gathered around their sets for the main programmes, just as they had gathered around newspapers and radios before.

By the 1980s, however, the tone began to shift. Amid perestroika and the national awakening, you could observe subtle changes in Latvian broadcasting: more local stories, a slightly altered language, programmes that edged closer to what people were actually discussing. These cracks in the propaganda façade were early indicators that politics itself was evolving.

By the time Latvia regained its independence in 1991, it already had a lengthy and complex media history: from its first Latvian-language newspaper in Jelgava, to a radio voice of the nation, to television under censorship, and ultimately to the first signs of a freer press breaking through the concrete.

And that forms the backdrop to the Latvia you and I understand today: a country where you can scroll the news on your phone in a café in Rīga, but where, not so long ago, reading the wrong paper or listening to the wrong station could be an act of quiet resistance.

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On the air under occupation

When the Russian Soviets occupied Latvia in 1940, one of the first things they seized was the information domain. Soviet authorities swiftly took control of newspapers, radio, and later television, transforming them into tools to portray the Red Army as a ‘friendly’ liberating force and relations with Moscow as perfectly harmonious.

Research from that period indicates that Latvian newspapers largely continued as if nothing extraordinary had occurred, publishing pre‑arranged content and carefully crafted messaging. They created a facade of normal life while power was undergoing a complete transformation behind the scenes. Imagine: a major event like the Bay of Pigs standoff in Cuba between Russia and the USA, which nearly triggered World War III, was not covered by any media in the Soviet Union. Or the nuclear disaster at Chornobyl, which the Soviets initially attempted to conceal unsuccessfully. This remains the situation in Russia today.

Throughout the Soviet era, most media served as propaganda tools for the Communist Party, filled with slogans and ideological articles rather than independent journalism. Authentic, impartial reporting in the Western sense was practically non-existent. It is rather ironic that the main Russian newspaper then, and still now, is called Pravda, meaning 'the truth’. It has never truly lived up to that name!

Yet even within that controlled system, cracks appeared. During the independence movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, media became both a battleground and a megaphone. Freedom of the press, which Latvia had briefly enjoyed between 1918 and 1934, re-emerged, and revived outlets began to challenge censorship. 

Studies of late‑Soviet broadcasting in Latvia reveal how changes in radio and television programming — such as slightly more open debate and increased coverage of local issues — acted as signals that political shifts were occurring. Latvian radio and television, still formally Soviet institutions, began to broadcast content that resonated more with the national awakening, the Popular Front movement, and the broader ‘Singing Revolution’ across the Baltics. Latvian families could quietly watch news about demonstrations or listen to speeches and songs that suddenly felt different. Nearly everyone in Latvia watched the television broadcasts Labvakar (Good Evening) and Panorama, and the programme Pik. Equally important were the broadcasts on Radio Latvia, which included a weekly update on the Popular Front’s activities. The newspapers, Literature and Art, and Soviet Youth actively sought to oppose Soviet ideology. According to one journalist at the time, “The media’s role was huge because all of the awakening was started by journalists. There were so many journalists in the Popular Front…every tenth was a television journalist…everything was broadcast live.” Broadcast media - traditionally the most tightly controlled of Soviet media - became allied with an anti-Soviet opposition. In truth, independence was regained through mass public protest. The Latvian media supported this.

The Popular Front of Latvia recognised the importance of the information war. It was founded in 1988 to unite people of diverse political views with the shared aim of restoring a democratic and free Latvia. It monitored Western and Soviet media, translated documents for foreign journalists, organised interviews, and even published its own paper, Atmoda. Initially an information bulletin for the newly formed Popular Front, it evolved into an independent newspaper with its own editorial stance. It was published weekly, with a circulation of 80,000 to 100,000 copies, in Latvian, Russian, and English. During the years of struggle to regain independence, Atmoda was the key media outlet. After independence was achieved in 1991, Atmoda lost significance and ceased publication in 1992.

I visited the Popular Front Museum on Vecpilsētas iela 13/15. Spread over three floors of an old building, it tells the story of the resistance movement in visual form: the political scene, Popular Front activism, the Baltic Way, and the barricades. The last two I have covered in separate episodes. Lots of period room recreations, original video clips on Soviet-era televisions, and information boards in both Latvian and English. The Atmoda newspaper was edited from the attic of the building. You can visit the room! The museum is open six days a week and is free to visit. I was the only visitor during the hour I spent there. Such a pity. I enjoyed it more than the Occupation Museum that most visitors go to. Do visit if you are in Rīga's old town.

One symbol of the new era was the newspaper Diena, established as a genuinely independent daily rather than a former Soviet party organ. Its founders consciously rejected the old propaganda style, and in the 1990s it became the country’s most influential paper, weighing in on major decisions – for example, a strong editorial in favour of ratifying a key treaty with Russia even though it allowed retired Russian military personnel to stay in Latvia. Its main rival is Latvijas Avīze, a conservative daily Latvian-language newspaper that now claims to be the leading newspaper. Just! Today’s Latvijas Avīze isn’t the same paper as the nineteenth-century Latviešu Avīzes, in case you wondered. It began in 1988 as Lauku Avīze (Rural Newspaper) in late‑Soviet Latvia, and in 2003 it was renamed Latvijas Avīze.

When I was a British diplomat in Latvia from 1996 to 1999, the Embassy had a Third Secretary, a press and political officer supported by the Ambassador’s Latvian secretary. Every morning, Sarah could be found buried under a pile of Latvian newspapers so she could brief the Ambassador and me on what reporters were saying about the issues we were heavily trying to help Latvia with, especially de-Russification policies that met international law standards.

I also remember that in the 1990s, the day’s newspapers were pasted onto centrally located hoardings, page by page, for people to read, who perhaps could not afford to buy a newspaper each day. How much has it changed in the way people consume media today!

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From printing presses to push notifications

Fast‑forward to today, and you find a relatively small but crowded media market. Latvia has public‑service broadcasters – Latvian Radio and Latvian Television – alongside private TV channels, commercial radio, national and regional newspapers, and a growing online‑only sector.

Television is still often regarded as the primary medium for news, but the main newspapers now have digital editions, and you can watch TV and listen to radio streams online or via apps.

The print press has experienced a long decline in circulation, but several national dailies and weeklies still influence opinion among political and business elites, while regional papers remain significant outside Rīga. This is quite similar to how the news media has developed in the UK.

My favourite Latvian media is LSM+, the English-language online portal of Latvian state broadcasting. I read it every day. It keeps me up to date on political developments, including what my neighbour Rollo is up to (do listen to my episode, On Russians, to understand!), economic changes and culture. I love the Friday “three for the weekend” article and have often followed one of the tips on events that weekend. Two other things I appreciate about LSM+. The first is the sense of humour and fun that creeps into the reporting. The other is the news in simple Latvian that starts the day.

Legally, Latvia protects press freedom, and since the late 1980s independence movement, there has been a continuous period in which journalists can, on paper, work without state censorship. In practice, influence is shaped by ownership, advertising markets, and the shift to online platforms. Media landscape analyses note concerns about political or business influence over some outlets and the economic fragility of many newsrooms, but they also point out a diverse ecosystem of public‑service, commercial, and niche media. I appreciate that Latvia includes independent journalists as members of the press corps if they apply for the annual pass. People like me who podcast on topics about Latvia. That is forward-thinking. In the UK, more journalists are writing articles independently, even those employed by news outlets, on Substack, or producing short video news content for a younger audience on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Like it or not, more and more people get their news updates primarily from social media. Just over half of the population in the UK, according to the media regulator OFCOM’s latest survey.

Latvia also grapples with a divided information space: many Russian-speaking residents consume Russian-language media, which can range from locally produced content to channels and websites aligned with the Kremlin. There is an ongoing debate about whether LSM, as a state news outlet, should continue to produce news in Russian. Many people, including parliamentarians, want this to cease. My view is that with over a third of the population speaking Russian at home, isn’t it better that they receive news and information that is factual and uncensored by the Kremlin? Otherwise, they will just read, listen to, and watch Russian state media that is heavily controlled by the Kremlin. My Russian neighbours in Imanta in Rīga all have satellite dishes on their homes, all pointing towards Russia!

Like everywhere else, social media and online platforms have become central. Since the early 2000s, traditional outlets have gone digital, but they now compete with Facebook, YouTube, Telegram, TikTok and various portals for attention and advertising. Influencer‑ranking sites for Latvia show that the top Instagram, YouTube and TikTok creators are mostly in fashion, lifestyle, gaming, cars, humour and travel; dedicated, personality‑led “news explainer” channels in Latvian are not yet prominent in those rankings.

Also, surprisingly, podcasts are few and relatively unknown as a medium, despite Spotify being popular in Latvia. I think there are only two English-language podcasts: my friend Joe’s Latvia Weekly, an entertaining conversation about the news in Latvia, and this podcast. The rest seem to be Russian-language podcasts. 

There is a small but increasing layer of Latvian-language “news explainers” on social media, but it is fragmented and often mixes straight political opinion with traditional BBC-style explainers.

Lists of “Latvian politics” TikTok influencers reveal a small group of creators whose main content involves short political commentary and reactions to current events in Latvia; they discuss parliamentary decisions, government scandals, and social issues, using politics-related hashtags to make their posts serve as informal news explainers for younger audiences. A notable example is Glorija Grevcova, highlighted in a 2025 TikTok ranking as a prominent Latvian creator whose content focuses on political commentary and Latvian news, linked to youth-oriented political movements; she explains events, criticises politicians, and presents it as “what’s really going on”. Academic research on TikTok in Latvia indicates that political TikTok features both genuine explainers and clear disinformation, making the “Latvian-language news influencer” space as much about narrative battles as neutral news. It is probable that these news influencers will increase in popularity, especially among young people — where a young Latvian creator posts a 30-second vertical TikTok explaining in their own opinion what yesterday’s parliamentary vote “really” means.

Analysts of Latvia’s media landscape point out that this presents both opportunities and vulnerabilities: it is easier than ever for independent voices to publish, but the information environment is also more vulnerable to disinformation campaigns, including from Russia, and to the economic pressures associated with click‑based monetisation and platform algorithms.

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Broadcasting from exile

One of the most noticeable changes in recent years is that Latvia, and Rīga in particular, has become a refuge for Russian journalists who cannot work safely in Russia. After the Kremlin increased control over independent media and implemented strict ‘foreign agent’ and wartime censorship laws, some outlets chose exile.

Meduza, one of the most well-known Russian independent news outlets, has had its headquarters in Rīga since 2014. Its journalists have been branded ‘foreign agents’ and ‘undesirable’ by the Russian state, with their content blocked inside Russia and staff harassed, prosecuted, or compelled to leave.

Latvia has also hosted other Russian independent media projects, though it has not been without controversy. The TV channel Dozhd (TV Rain), for example, moved some of its operations to Latvia after being blocked in Russia, obtained a broadcasting licence, but later had that licence revoked by the Latvian media regulator over what authorities called threats to national security and public order.

For exiled Russian journalists, Latvia provides legal protection and a base close to their audience, but not complete freedom from pressure. Reporters mention being unable to return to Russia due to fear of long prison sentences under ‘foreign agent’ and ‘discrediting the army’ laws, and some have encountered harassment or digital attacks even while abroad.

At the same time, operating from Rīga lets them maintain a degree of editorial independence they simply couldn’t have inside Russia, and they continue to cover Russian politics, human rights, and the war in Ukraine, even if many of their readers and viewers now rely on VPNs or mirror sites to access them.

However, Latvia has effectively banned Russian state and Russia-registered TV channels from broadcasting within its territory, with the bans linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine and concerns over national security. In June 2022, Latvia’s media regulator decided to ban the retransmission of all TV channels registered in Russia, approximately 80 channels, using amendments to the Electronic Mass Media Law that prohibit programmes from countries threatening another state’s independence and territorial integrity. The ban is in place “until Russia stops its war in Ukraine and returns Crimea to Ukraine”. This followed earlier piecemeal bans on specific Russian propaganda channels, including Rossija RTR, Rossija 24, TV Centr International, and various RT (Russia Today) channels, on grounds of hate speech, warmongering, and threats to Latvia’s national security.

The relationship with independent Russian media that have relocated to Latvia is fragile. For Latvia, this creates a new role: not only managing its own information space but also acting as a small but important hub for Russian‑language journalism that refuses to follow the Kremlin line – with all the security, regulatory, and political debates that come with that.

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In closing

If you stand still in the middle of Rīga you can imagine - tune in, if you like - all these layers of media. The echoes of censored Soviet news, the cautious voices of exiled Russian journalists, the cheerful chaos of modern social media, and somewhere underneath it all, that quiet nineteenth‑century newspaper in Jelgava trying to put ‘Latvia’ into words for the first time. How Latvians receive their news has changed, but the struggle over who tells the story, and in which language, is very much alive.

[Image of Atmoda newspapers at the Popular Front Museum. Music by Ivan Luzan on Pixabay]