WSJ asst editor on getting Evan Gershkovich back from Russian prison

Wall Street Journal assistant editor Paul Beckett, who was tasked by the Journal with coordinating its effort to secure the release of reporter Evan Gershkovich, discussed the Journal’s open and “loud” approach. “The Russians didn’t give us much of a choice because they came out and said he is a spy — total nonsense. But what were we going to do, then, I mean, we had to very, very quickly and very loudly, make it very clear to the world that he works for the Wall Street Journal and The Wall Street Journal only,” he said in an interview with Ed O’Keefe on “Face the Nation.” But Beckett also said he thought the Biden administration “had an idea of what it would take to get him back from the moment he was seized. And I don’t think that changed. For all our noise, I don’t think the dynamic changed.”