She has worked for ten years as a correspondent for a number of independent Russian papers as well as international media. She has also served as chief of the North Caucasian bureau of the Russian news agency Regnum. Tilsova is a regular writer for IWPR (London) and for the Jamestown Foundation (Washington, DC). She has received the Rory Peck award and the German Zeit-Stiftung award for her reporting on the conflict in the North Caucasus and her efforts to help fellow journalists.