Our press has, for a long time, reminded me of Eeyore, the donkey from Winnie the Pooh books, who is forever complaining about life: The laws are no good, the authorities are oppressive, and there is not enough money. On this occasion there were plenty of reasons to gripe.

The government is preparing to revoke the VAT breaks that the mass media currently receive. A draft law is passing through the State Duma with more stringent rules regarding the showing of advertisements on electronic media. Both may have a negative impact on media businesses' revenues. And finally, the tragedy of Vladimir Gusinsky's NTV, which sent shock-waves through the whole of the media community, has found a sequel over the past few weeks in Boris Berezovsky's TV6, which is under threat of liquidation.

All these issues were discussed at the above-mentioned forums, but somehow without the usual apocalyptic tones in which such discussions are usually conducted. Yes, it was agreed, it is necessary to lobby for the preservation of tax breaks; yes, it is worth it to introduce certain amendments to the draft law on advertising. But if the attempts are not successful, it will not be the end of the world. I came away with the firm impression that our media have become more confident of their own strength.

Why is this? Primarily -- and everyone made this point -- because the advertising market is growing. While it totaled $1.1 billion in 2000, this year estimates are from $2 billion to $4 billion. Of course, for such a huge country as Russia this is still not big money, but it is growth nonetheless. Moreover, for more than two years this growth has been stable. In addition, growth is ensured not only by the elections taking place all over the country, with their corruptively large and predominantly unofficial budgets, but also by general growth of the economy. Stable growth of advertising revenues provides greater potential for maneuvering and asserting independence both from the state with its not terribly friendly attitude toward freedom of speech, and from commercial organizations that buy up media outlets.

The second point concerns political stability in society. It has long been said that Russian business -- and the media business is no exception -- can adapt to the worst laws in the world, provided they are stable. Under Boris Yeltsin, it was not possible to test this hypothesis empirically, as the rules of the game in the economy and in politics changed so often.

However, in the past two years it has become possible to do this, and quite successfully. Largely thanks to this, more and more media professionals are looking at the media business as a regular business with serious time horizons, and not just as a means to opportunistically extract revenues by maneuvering between various political groups.

A media industry that is self-confident has better chances of improving the general environment for their activities than if it is despondent like Eeyore the donkey.

Alexei Pankin is the editor of Sreda, a magazine for media professionals (www.internews.ru/sreda)