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20 Years Later: Russia

By Yulia Medvedeva Posted Apr 13 2010

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Alexander Kukolevsky, a staff writer for a weekly magazine Kommersant Vlast, compared the existing Russian free media to cuff links: “They are not very comfortable but look so stylish,” he says

He listed a number of independent media in Moscow, including his employer, and concluded that the list might convey “an impression of a freer Moscow” media as opposed to local Russian news organizations. Kukolevsky said free media like Kommersant exist in almost every region of Russia, but “their voices get lost in the choir of state-controlled newspapers and TV channels.”

The biggest loss of independent media in Russia occurred in 2000. Vladimir Gusinsky, former owner of the NTV, was forced to sell the station to the government, and the channel gradually lost its reputation of a free voice on Russian television.

Andrei Piontkovsky, leading scientist for Institute of Systems Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a well-known political analyst and journalist, said that since the beginning of the 2000s, the president’s administration has sent out so-called “stop-lists.” These include sources that are banned from interviews with news organizations.

In President Dmitry Medvedev’s open letter “Go Russia!” released in September 2009 Piontkovsky sees a sign of a decline in the autocratic regime. At the same time, Piontkovsky remains pessimistic about the future of freedom of speech. In September 2007 he was accused of promoting extremism upon publishing The Unloved Country, a book about Vladimir Putin’s presidency. However, Moscow State University’s expert arguments removed the pending accusations in December 2008.

Kukolevsky said Kommersant and other relatively free media are not distributed outside Moscow. “Those are show-case media,” he says. He added there are very few and their audience is “immeasurably smaller” compared to state-owned TV stations, where both censorship and self-censorship arise.

Self-censorship might stem from the need to survive in the developing market economy. Elena Vartanova, dean of the Journalism School at Moscow State University and head chair of media theory and economics, said no more than 10 percent of the Russian media is profitable. On the other hand, less optimistic experts say only five percent of Russia’s media gains a profit.

But Vartanova attributes self-censorship to more than a developing economy. Instead, she says it is also an issue of politics. The censorship situation worsens due to a high percentage of state ownership along with a strong, formal financial bond among newsrooms and state governing bodies.

“Financial support from the local budget leads journalists being, in fact, members of the staff of local government bodies,” she says. “Their job is to serve their employers’ interests up to, I’d say, [fulfilling] even propaganda.”

News outlets that are not funded through the state budget are often started by entrepreneurs for the sake of delivering political messages. For instance, Kostromskaya Narodnaya Gazeta was launched in 2000 by a local businessman seeking public office in the city government. It was meant to improve the governor’s image in the town of Kostroma. After having fulfilled its goal, the newspaper gradually changed its voice to a soft news and crime tabloid. Apparently, hard news does not sell well in Russia.

Over 20 years of Russia’s free market economy, both in print and broadcast, entertainment remains a driving force for attracting advertisers. Quality business news, Kukolevsky says, is always pre-paid. On the other hand, “bad business news is always paid for by competitors,” he says.

Vartanova said she looks to the future of Russian media with reserved optimism. Emerging online and print media that do not follow the government’s agenda give her hope for better prospects. She says Russian media will accomplish “ sound independence” once financial management and news production are separated.