BU Journalism Professor Detained by Russian Authorities
Veteran reporter Joe Bergantino to return to United States
Veteran journalist Joe Bergantino was detained in Russia Thursday for alleged visa violations. The BU professor is scheduled to return to the United States Saturday.
Bergantino, a College of Communication clinical professor of journalism and director of the University’s New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR), was conducting workshops for Russian journalists in St. Petersburg. Also held was Randy Covington, a University of South Carolina journalism professor and a former executive with WBZ-TV, Boston’s CBS affiliate, who was leading the workshops with Bergantino.
During a court hearing Thursday, a Russian judge “gave them a verbal warning and told them they had to cease and no longer do the workshop,” says NECIR reporter and director of partnerships Beth Daley.
In texts to NECIR and in a brief phone conversation, Bergantino told Daley that the Russians said he and Covington lacked proper visas to conduct educational workshops. “Joe has been to Russia before,” she says, as part of the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission to foster cooperation between the two nations. He received State Department advice on the necessary visas for this trip, and “he followed the directions to a T.” Before the St. Petersburg snafu, Bergantino conducted two days of workshops in Moscow that “went very well,” she says.
He and Covington had begun a workshop in St. Petersburg when Russian immigration agents interrupted it to question them. The authorities allowed the workshop to resume, only to return minutes later to escort them to the immigration office.
NECIR doesn’t know the nature of the Russians’ objections to Bergantino’s visa, Daley says. “We all know the political climate has changed dramatically in Russia,” she adds, “and that change could be impacting this.”
Bergantino told Daley that he was treated well by the Russian authorities, receiving tea and cookies in advance of his hearing.
A three decades-plus journalism veteran, Bergantino was part of WBZ’s I-Team. He also worked as an ABC correspondent for five years, doing reporting for ABC’s World News Tonight, Nightline, and Good Morning America. He is the winner of a duPont-Columbia Award and Citation and several local Emmy Awards, including one for Best Investigative Reporter in New England, among other broadcast honors.
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