News powered by Gaz
By Alexander Merkushev Posted Sun, Apr 1 2001
The long-dragging conflict over control of Russia’s only private nationwide TV network, NTV, has come to an end. The Kremlin-affiliated natural gas monopoly Gazprom took control and installed its own management despite strong opposition and even resistance from the editorial staff.
NTV was the flagship of the Media-Most Holding Co., owned by Russia’s prominent press baron, Vladimir Gusinsky. His empire, comprising half a dozen media outlets, has been gradually falling to pieces ever since Vladimir Putin came to power.
Putin’s idea of building a strong Russia requires popular support and sympathy from the press, not criticism. But criticism of the Kremlin’s policies was the hallmark of NTV and its sister media outlets. Their coverage of the never-ending war in Chechnya and Putin’s belated and awkward response to the nuclear submarine Kursk crisis, which sank with all 118 crew members in August 2000, was the last straw that apparently made the Kremlin want to streamline the domestic media.
The almost weekly raids of Media-Most offices by Kalashnikov-toting tax police in camouflage and black masks, dubbed “mask shows” in the media, gave way to a series of court actions against top managers, including Gusinsky, who was finally forced to give up his rights to the television company he founded in 1993.
The new management fired the chief editor and leading anchorman, Yevgeny Kiselyov. More than a hundred journalists walked out in protest and joined a television company run by Gusinsky’s competitor. Taken separately, the entire affair might have been viewed as a conflict over property had it not been for a chain of other events.
Putin has made the upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, virtually toothless by replacing elected regional bosses, or governors, who were its members, with appointed representatives. Three centrist factions in the lower house, the State Duma, merged with their 1999 election foe, the pro-Kremlin Unity faction, forming the largest parliamentary group ready to rubber-stamp any government decision. Putin’s allies have taken top positions in defense and police departments, which play an increased role in domestic policies, and head the country’s seven federal districts, thus effectively curbing the powers of the regional governors.
On the media front, the liberal daily Segodnya has been shut down as unprofitable, and the weekly news magazine Itogi, published jointly with Newsweek, has been taken over by Gazprom. Both Segodnya and Itogi were part of Media-Most Holding.
“It has become absolutely clear after the takeover of NTV that authorities are prepared to act against those who disagree with them without giving a second thought to juridical formalities,” says Dmitry Pinsker, formerly of Itogi magazine. The new Itogi management, installed by Gazprom, fired Pinsker and all other reporters.
In destroying the country’s largest independent media holding, “the Kremlin is sure this action will not provoke mass protests,” Pinsker says. “In the latest public opinion polls, most Russians sympathize with the ‘old’ NTV, but only four percent of respondents regard the replacement of the NTV team as an encroachment on the free press.”
Pinsker attributes this to the intensive propaganda campaign launched in the state-controlled media to the effect the conflict was about ownership or “turf battles” between warring financial and political clans, rather than about the freedom of the press. It’s noteworthy that Gusinsky’s nemesis, Boris Berezovsky, publicly repented his support for Putin during the 2000 presidential race. “I regret it. I failed to take into account Putin’s KGB past,” he wrote in an open letter published by the daily Kommersant.
Berezovsky was said to be instrumental in providing massive financial aid first to Boris Yeltsin and then to Putin, for which he was often called the “Kremlin Godfather.” During the presidential election campaign, Putin was portrayed as a strong leader capable of restoring Russia’s might. His KGB past was often glorified to prove his commitment to the country.
In the wake of the latest media crisis, Berezovsky invited the NTV team to join his television company, TV6, which broadcasts to Moscow and a number of neighboring regions. Berezovsky showed Putin the “fantastic uses of the mass media, and primarily television, as propaganda tools for brainwashing,” Pinsker says. “Vladimir Putin has learned the lesson well, and now all the nationwide television channels are under Kremlin control.”
All the latest developments fall well within the concept of Russia’s national security, namely the Doctrine of Information Security, which was approved shortly after Putin’s election in the year 2000. The doctrine says only state-controlled media should dominate on the mass-media market because only the state is capable of providing objective information for the people about current events and of curbing misinformation from abroad.
When CNN founder Ted Turner and other Western media magnates expressed their interest in buying into NTV, the obedient Duma quickly acted on the president’s expectations, overwhelmingly approving a bill banning foreigners from acquiring controlling stakes in the Russia media.
A voice of dissent came from the liberal Yabloko faction. “It will lead to total state control over media,” says member Sergei Mitrokhin. Unity member Pavel Kovalenko objected: “It’s better if the media is controlled by our state than by a foreign state.” And he added, reflecting the prevalent public view about the media’s role, “if there are no restrictions, (Rupert) Murdoch and Turner may elect our president and parliament.”