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ITAR-TASS, Novosti, and InterFax A great portion of the information that the world obtains from Russia comes from the domestic news agencies—entities themselves which are in tremendous transition. TASS, for example, long an icon of Soviet dominance, was among the few buildings the forces of opposition sought to seize during late September. But the virtual monopoly of TASS has been broken and it is under vigorous challenge from private competitors (not to say the substantial growth of the Western journalistic community). The following provides an introduction to the history of several of these premier agencies. TASS (Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union), founded in 1925, was for decades under the jurisdiction of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, later directly reporting to the USSR President. In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev appointed his former press secretary and assistant, Vitaly Ignatenko, as its Director-General. A former water polo star of the Moscow State University team, Ignatenko enjoyed a rapid journalistic rise during the time of Brezhnev whom he assisted in writing his memoirs; his star rose again in the last months of Gorbachev’s rule. He replaced Lev Spiridonov, who was fired in the wake of accusations for collaboration with the leaders of the failed coup in August 1991. Then considered as an interim figure, Ignatenko remains one of the last top official appointees of Mikhail Gorbachev still in office. As its peak in mid-1980s, TASS had fourteen affiliates in the Union republics, bureaus and correspondents in 110 countries. With a daily output equal of 750 newspaper pages, translated into eight languages, it was the main information source both for the outside world on events in the USSR, and the Soviets on international and domestic affairs. At that time TASS had a staff of almost 5,000 workers, one-fifth of them being journalists. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, TASS was renamed Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (ITAR-TASS) and placed under Russian government authority. It has abandoned most of its bureaus in African and Asian capitals, closed offices in several Russian towns, and cut the staff to about 3500, of whom 900 are journalists. (There are now 115 correspondents in seventy-five countries.) In the course of this cut, TASS has apparently fired all the agents of the KGB working abroad under its cover. Today ITAR-TASS has three provincial branches inside Russia—in St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, and Khabarovsk—and numerous bureaus throughout the country and in the republics of the former Soviet Union. ITAR-TASS has 120 subscriber-customers in foreign countries, while in Russia, it sells its wires to every state television and radio company, and to the majority of national and regional publications, providing general political, economic, and human interest information on the events in Russia, the Newly Independent States, and the world. It also now produces a variety of supplements for targeted audiences, including Eko-TASS (economic news), statistical files, and services like Photo Itar-Tass. Recently, it has started three regular publications: Ekho planety (Echo of the Planet), an illustrated weekly newsmagazine of world affairs, 24 chasa (24 Hours), a newspaper of hard news, and Asia-oriented Vostochnyi ekspress (Eastern Express). Nevertheless, the material and market share of TASS have much to do with official information that it still provides. President Yeltsin’s decree of December 25, 1992 put TASS under the control of the Federal Information Center. When, in March, 1993 the now-dissolved Parliament voted to abolish the Center, Yeltsin appealed to the Constitutional Court, but the latter affirmed the legality of the legislature’s resolution. Despite that, the Center, funded from the President’s budget, still occupies half of the offices that used to belong to the Ministry of Press and Information and continues to function as if nothing had happened. The second news agency, Novosti, was created as a “public organization” in 1961 in order to do reporting and worldwide distribution of news and features about “communist construction” in the USSR. By early 1990s, Novosti had amassed a modern video production facility and a high-tech publishing house. Its magazines (as many as twenty-nine monthlies, seven bi-weeklies, and ten weeklies), brochures and books in thirty-four foreign languages were issued for distribution in 125 countries. After July of 1990, Yeltsin, then the new chairman of Russia’s legislature, suggested taking Novosti under control of the republican parliament in order to reorganize it as a tribune of liberal forces. President Mikhail Gorbachev rebuffed, initiating a series of transformations of the agency, putting it under different jurisdictions, splitting it, merging it with other media outlets. At present, the residuum is called the Russian Information Agency (RIA) Novosti and is also under the Federal Information Center. A president’s decree of September 15, 1993, suggests more involvement, perhaps interference, in the affairs of Novosti in order “to inform Russian and world public on political, economic, cultural life of the Russians with the use of all kinds of printed, computerized, television, radio, and photo information.” This decree may curtail Novosti’s attempts to pursue a policy independent of governmental instructions. As to non-state agencies, the obvious leader is Interfax. Founded in September of 1989 as a faxed bulletin of Radio Moscow and a Soviet-French-Italian joint venture, Interfax was re-registered as an independent news agency and now is a joint-stock company chaired and directed by Mikhail Komissar. Although Interfax is generally known for its political news and exclusive interviews, its business and macroeconomic information is also highly valued. At present, it publishes twenty-one periodical bulletins of general and business news in Russian and English with a staff of 220 employees (about seventy of them are journalists) at the Moscow headquarters and two hundred more elsewhere in the former USSR. Backed by some sixty foreign subscribers, it has expanded and now has business affiliates in London (Interfax-Europe), Denver, Colorado (Interfax-USA), as well as news affiliates Interfax-Ukraine in Kharkov and Kiev, and Baltfax (a joint company with the Baltic News Service) in Riga. The agency plans to open affiliates Interfax-Asia in Almaty and Tashkent, Interfax-Siberia in Novosibirsk, Interfax-Far East in Vladivostok, and Interfax-Belarus in Minsk. Andrei Richter |
Last Updated: 11/20/99 |
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© 1999 Post-Soviet Media Law &
Policy Newsletter |
