A couple years after the collapse of the USSR, an American editor came to Tbilisi, the capital of then newly independent Georgia to advise local journalists on how to make the transition from being Pravda apparatchiks to real reporters.

His host, editor of the country’s top daily paper, introduced him to a young woman whom he described as the rising star and the future of Georgian journalism. The editor raved about the reporter’s pieces. “What made them so good?” the American asked. “It’s her writing,” the Georgian editor replied. “She is so good, you really have to read between the lines to understand what she means.”

I have always cherished this story, as told by the American editor, as an example of the dire state of early post-Soviet journalism. But recently, while listening to a regular briefing by Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it suddenly dawned on me how the Georgian editor was in his own way right, and how “between the lines” journalism was indeed the best thing Pravda-era reporters could produce.

Zakharova has drawn inspiration from the speaking style of State Department spokespeople, rather than her own wooden predecessors. In her early 40s, she is slick, articulate and blunt: a fresh face on Russia’s foreign policy. But she poses a challenge to the media that is relevant everywhere. It concerns everyone who wants to protect the truth from anyone who doesn’t respect facts.