In an RFE/RL broadcast on 23 December, Rogacheva quoted local activists who reported that a number of violations of the election law took place during that ballot in which the incumbent, President Leonid Markelov, was elected to a second term. Markelov's style of rule has been characterized as "authoritarian." More than a dozen newspapers that express a point of view different from the local government, have to be published outside of the republic, according to iamik.ru on 11 January.
In addition to working for RFE/RL, Rogacheva has also written for "Argumenty i Fakty v Marii El" and "Moskovskii komsomolets v Marii El." In 2003, she was sued for an article that appeared in the latter publication, which was based on official information from the republican Prosecutor's Office, according to the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations. She discovered a pattern that showed that the introduction of bankruptcy procedure at enterprises with huge unpaid debts in most cases does not lead to an improvement in the enterprises' financial situation. And if only the criterion of nonpayment of debts was applied, then practically every enterprise in the republic could be called bankrupt. Rogacheva won the "Golden Pen" award in 1998, when she headed the news service for Radio-M, and in 2003 she was named as one of the best journalists in the republic by the regional branch of the Media Union.
Rogacheva told Interfax that while she can walk unaided in her apartment, she avoids looking in the mirror because of the bruises on her face.