From AP via TheStar.com:

The dead hover over the morning meeting at Russia's leading investigative newspaper and chief editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov is in an understandably foul mood as Novaya Gazeta's staffers try to plan the next of its three weekly editions.

In a corner hang photos of four reporters Muratov has lost in the past eight years – one beaten to death, one allegedly poisoned, two shot – the most recent on Jan. 19.

That journalist was Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old cub reporter.

She and a human rights lawyer were shot execution-style by a masked man with a silenced pistol as they walked together a few blocks from the Kremlin.

It's not easy putting out a paper these days, says Muratov, 47.

"There's usually a lot of jokes, laughing, talk about ideas. But our batteries are totally spent." ,,,

Novaya Gazeta writers and editors have attended self-defence classes, and keep their notes hidden or stored on secure computer servers. Some use pseudonyms. At least one has bodyguards.

Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire ex-lawmaker who is part owner of the paper, is demanding authorities allow its reporters to carry guns. Not all the paper's staff support the idea. Muratov, the editor, does.

"Either we defend ourselves or we go write about nature and birds ... and all positive things. We become a tabloid," he says.

"And then we don't write about the security services. We don't write about corruption. ... We don't write about fascism.''