Dmitry Kiselyov entered our newsroom wearing an elegant suit and a victorious smile. Three days earlier, on December 9, 2013, President Vladimir Putin had signed a decree dramatically reorganizing Russia’s media landscape. Kiselyov, the man whom Western media has labelled the Kremlin’s “chief propagandist,” was about to become my new boss at RIA Novosti.

For years, RIA Novosti had been one of the most unusual media organizations in Russia: a state-run agency with an excellent reputation for balanced and fair reporting. Putin’s decree meant that RIA would be absorbed by a new organization called Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today). If the English-language RT was meant to bring the official Russian point of view to the West, “Rossiya Segodnya” would focus on domestic audiences. Kiselyov was appointed as its CEO.

Standing in the middle of the newsroom, Kiselyov delivered his vision of the future: “We are supported by the presidential administration and by the government. You know, there is freedom of speech in our country. But the period of impartial journalism is over. Objectivity is a myth that we have been offered; it has been imposed on us. I myself used to abide by these principles, but I went through an internal evolution,” he said.

I quit RIA Novosti a month or so later, and then spent several weeks searching for a new job. Finally, a local TV channel, controlled by the Moscow city government, offered me a reporter’s position. Nothing else was available. During the interview, I made it clear that I would not want to cover any political issues and my editors respected my wish. But I was kidding myself by thinking I could avoid being swallowed up by the propaganda machine.