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May 23, 2001
Notes of Remarks by Alexander Yevreinov to Members of GCVOA
Last month commenting on the
situation with mass media freedom in Russia, Alexander Solzhenitsyn said,
“Everyone is talking about freedom, but no one is speaking about trust.
Meanwhile, truth is more important than freedom.” I
will try to tell you the truth, at least, as I understand it.
In the early nineties my partner and I started publishing one of the
first independent newspapers in Russia. It
was the time when private periodicals, radio and TV stations sprouted up like
mushrooms after a rainfall. In
the middle of the nineties there were about a dozen independent newspapers in
my hometown of Volgograd and two private TV channels.
But after three years we had to close our business down. In the course of the transition period our readers became
much poorer and could not pay the subscription price. Commercial advertising was not developed and did not bring
enough revenues either.
There
was another way out, which some of our friends chose.
Facing financial difficulties, mass media companies voluntarily
abandoned their freedom in exchange for collaboration with authorities and
getting government subsidies.
Now
almost all high-circulation newspapers in Volgograd and all TV companies have
become either directly owned by the local government or dependent on
government subsidies. Only a few
independent outlets remained. For example, one of my journalist friends publishes an
independent weekly in Volgograd. But
to keep his newspaper going he covers part of the expenses with profits from
clothing store and some kiosks he owns. Otherwise, it would be not be
possible. Most other editors bow
to authorities or oligarchs.
This
process had begun long before President Putin came to power.
Although the government does not directly ban or suppress any of the
media outlets, most of them are losing independence.
It has not been because of the deliberate policies of the Yeltsin or
Putin administrations. It has
been because the economic situation in Russia has become so bad.
If we are to blame anybody, we must blame the editors of the formerly
independent media. They sold
their freedom and that of their journalist colleagues for economic security. But should we really blame them?
These
are the facts. Apart from such
true facts there are other ones that may give you the wrong impression about
recent developments in Russia. Some of the Russian nouveau riches, which we call oligarchs,
acquired media outlets by using connections to the Yeltsin clan and operated
them with funds borrowed from the government.
Feeling now the pressure of the new administration and law-enforcement
agencies because of their misuse of funds and other suspect dealings, the best
defense they found was to declare that they were victims of an
“authoritarian regime.” Knowing
that they would not find much support at home and that the West is sensitive
to these issues, they made appeals directly to the West.
You
probably know that the former owner of the Media-Most Holding Company,
Vladimir Gusinsky, founded NTV with low interest government loans as a favor
for supporting President Yeltsin during his re-election campaign in 1996.
He never paid those loans back and, it seems, never intended to.
So by right this property was claimed by those to whom it belongs-the
Russian Gas Company Gazprom which is forty percent owned by the state.
Gusinsky
knows that he is not popular in Russia; that is why he looks for support
abroad, not at home. After his
detention and release last year his aides visited half a dozen European
countries and the USA in search of support, while neither he, nor his aides
traveled for a similar purpose to any Russian city.
Last year I wrote a letter inviting him to speak in Volgograd.
I tried to reach out to him through members of the Volgograd Jewish
community. Each time he replied
politely that he would like to come and speak but for the time being he was
busy
Of
course, NTV and the other media outlets Gusinsky once controlled did not
reflect the views of just Gusinsky. Each
had a staff of highly qualified reporters and editors.
It came a great shock for them to learn that suddenly, overnight, they
had a new employer. They had
built NTV through their efforts and through their efforts it became immensely
popular.
In
Soviet times we used to have only one employer, the state.
So if a new factory manager came, it did not mean a great change for
the employees. They had to obey the same rules, and no one could alter them.
Now it has changed, and we Russians are not accustomed to the new
order. These days frequently one
can see Russian TV footage of workers occupying their factory and refusing to
let the new owners take it over. Sometimes the new owners can get access to the premises only
with the help of the police. This
is capitalism, you know. I read
many stories in your newspapers about mergers and hostile takeovers of US
media outlets. In the majority of
cases all the key editors have to go.
Of
course, the relationship between the owners of a media outlet and the staff
can bring on big problems. However, I was satisfied with the resolution respecting
freedom of mass media adopted in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe last
April. This resolution stressed
the necessity for all owners of media outlets, whether state or private, to
respect the freedom and independence of its journalists.
What
to do now? Is it the end of
freedom of speech in Russia now that most media outlets are state-owned?
In my mind the answer to this question is no.
Freedom of the press is not synonymous with private, nor for that
matter state, ownership. For
example, major TV companies in Europe are state-owned: ARD in Germany and BBC
in Britain. Do you know when
Russian journalists enjoyed the greatest freedom and independence in Russia? During the last years of Communism under Mikhail Gorbachev,
when all mass media wee state owned.
When
I buy a loaf of bread I do not care which bakery made it- a private one or a
state owned one. I only want the
bread to be tasty and fresh. The same with a newspaper I buy or a TV program I watch.
I do not care who their boss is. I
want to learn what is going on in the world and preferably get a true and
accurate picture of events. Unfortunately,
in Russia “private” does not always mean “high quality”.
The most notorious and biased Russian TV commentators worked at the
private TV channel controlled by the Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky.
According
to a recent poll 90 per cent of the journalists of both private and
state-owned media said that in their work they felt responsibility not to
their readers or viewers, but to their employer.
The problem is not whether ownership is state or private, but whether
the approach is pluralistic or monolithic.
Besides, I am convinced that under present economic conditions in
Russia private TV cannot be operated profitably as there is too much cost and
too little revenue. So for the
time being, all major TV channels will be state-owned.
As the market for commercial advertising grows, there will be more
favorable opportunities for developing private media outlets.
To
ensure freedom and impartial editorial policy of state-owned TV companies
there must be parliamentary control through supervisory boards.
Currently, there are five political parties in the Federal Duma, some
of them opposed to President Putin. Some
time ago there were proposals to organize such supervisory boards, which must
ensure the integrity of the editorial policies and balanced news coverage.
But guess who is most opposed to these proposals?
The media editors and reporters. Why?
I
think the real reason for the opposition of editors and reporters to
supervision by a Parliamentary appointed board has been hushed up both in the
Russian and Western media. We
often talk about widespread corruption in the Russian government, but do you
really think that other Russians are immune to such corruption?
Corruption is so dangerous because like cancer it affects all parts of
the organism. Many rank and file
journalists, and I believe, all editors-in-chief, do not want to be subjected
to any public control because their trade has served as a source of taking in
shady income.
Take
the now famous NTV example. I
become suspicious when a media outlet starts excessively praising some
politician or business figure. I
think the outlet is doing this for money or other advantage.
I also am skeptical when a newspaper starts tarnishing a figure from
head to toe. In such cases I am
trying to guess who has paid off the media organ for this campaign and why.
NTV has often been called in the Western media “an opposition
channel”, or the “last opposition channel”.
But what is “the opposition channel” in the US?
Under former management before the recent takeover NTV had targeted
President Putin and its main shareholder, Gazprom, for exaggerated, overblown
criticism. Why did this happen?
To avoid being pressed to pay off their obligations to Gazprom?
Some
may call this drumfire of criticism “freedom of the press”, but I call it
biased reporting for ulterior reasons. I
am not surprised that all of the leading NYV journalists moved over to Channel
6 TV, a station owned by Boris Berezovsky, one of the oligarchs.
Berezovksy was as notorious as any of his fellow oligarchs for
flagrantly mixing money and politics.
As I
see the Russian mass media situation now, it is far from perfect.
But Russia as a whole is far from perfect.
And the problems with the independence of Russian media are the same as
those that permeate the rest of the country: poverty, corruption, and
lawlessness.
There
is no doubt that in Russia there is more democracy and freedom than there was
ten years ago. Nor can anyone
claim that Russia has reached the desired level of freedom and democracy.
But
the takeover of NTV by Gazprom does not signal the end of democracy in Russia.
Such a huge country with such deep and wide- spread problems cannot in
the course of a few years turn into a prosperous economy and a full-fledged
democracy. No one can help us
achieve this but ourselves. Yet
neither we Russians nor you outsiders should expect miracles.
The road to democracy is a long one.
Many nations followed the road to democracy for centuries before they
became what we now call “a civil society”.
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