|
|
|
War of
Media Laws: A war of media laws was one of the intellectual killing grounds in the harsh battle between President and Parliament in the run-up to Yeltsin’s September 21 suspension of Parliament and it may be useful to begin the first issue of the Newsletter by recapitulating the political struggles over the media that helped set the stage for the September events. The April referendum had tested the commitment to a truly free press. Both the forces behind Boris Yeltsin and the forces of the opposition maneuvered for control of television, radio, and print media during the referendum. The first “special rule” decree of President Yeltsin, announced in late March, established a new effort to “protect” the mass media, under the President, as “the supreme official personage of the state” and as “guarantor of the rights and liberties of the individual.” His opponents saw the decree as a law designed to compel press loyalty. Citing its authority under the 1991 Law on Mass Media, Yeltsin’s Ministry of Press and Information, early in the campaign, initiated court action to close down two opposition newspapers, Sovetskaya Rosssia (Soviet Russia), and Den (The Day), on the grounds that they were abusing that law by fomenting inter-ethnic conflict and violence against the state. In St. Petersburg, local authorities, supporters of the President, temporarily removed television commentator Aleksandr Nevzorov from the air, claiming that his calls for volunteers to defend the Motherland against Yeltsin’s “unconstitutional coup” were a violation of the mass media law’s prohibition against appeals for armed insurrection. Yeltsin’s decree ordering that the press be guarded from hostile abusers of media rights was mild compared with the activities of the legislative branch and the President’s opponents. The Congress, angered by perceived imbalances in news coverage of the crisis (favoring Yeltsin), passed its own bill, before the referendum, requiring the formation of their own supervisory councils, the membership to be chosen by federal and local legislative bodies, in order to “insure objective coverage” and “prevent political monopolization” of broadcasting. In addition, the Congress ordered government agencies to transfer to the Parliament their powers to start and partially supervise media activity. Just a month before the April vote, in the mid-sized city of Saratov on the Volga, local deputies, opponents of the President, marched into the local television station and seized the microphone from a surprised reporter. A Moscow news account of the Saratov incursion quoted a weary and angry journalist as follows: “In the old regime, we were told not to show empty wheat fields, or to show workers on their knees so that the wheat looked taller. Maybe that will happen again.” As the campaign unfolded, broadcasters challenged what they argued was manipulation by both sides. Staff members at the Russian Television Network, in late March, threatened to strike because of the threat to their ability to cover the news as they thought appropriate. A spokesperson for the Ostankino Network charged that the creation of supervisory councils by the Congress would bring a renewal of censorship. Other journalists denounced pressures placed on them by the Yeltsin government and the Ostankino directors. Even before the referendum, there were severe questions about access to the media for opposition parties. On 24 April Rabochaya Tribuna, (Workers’ Tribune), among others, discussed the fact that Aleksandr Rutskoi had been denied time—for his political party—for a broadcast in advance of the April referendum. According to the article, Ostankino and RTV did not offer air time, while the Moscow channel offered air time, but only on a commercial basis. The station blocked the broadcast, citing “pressure from above,” when it was learned that Rutskoi himself was going to use the time to appeal to Muscovites. Aleksei Simonov, the head of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, said, at the time, that Russian television was only fragilely an example of “fantastic pluralism.” He cautioned against reading too much into the clash of opinions and the presentation of different sides of the great constitutional questions. “It’s the uncertainty about the future that leads to pluralism. This is still government television. The only problem is defining who is the government. As soon as there is clear evidence as to who will win, the content of television will change.” “You have to remember,” Simonov presciently observed, “the relationship between television and the state is governed by people and loyalties, not by law and constitution. Government thinks it owns television, that it is not just another source of information, but far more.” In the wake of the April referendum, Khasbulatov had called for the Supreme Soviet to review the activities of the mass media. Discussing the violent May 1 demonstrations, Khasbulatov said “I am shocked by the cynicism in the description of these events. They speak of a conflict between ‘bums’ and militia. But if you take a look at this list of wounded you will see directors of businesses, academics, students. . . . Could it be they all appear to be ‘bums’ to Poltoranin’s press and television?” Not mincing his words, the then-Speaker claimed that Yeltsin’s ministers had engaged in “Goebbels-like conduct” and had been engaged in “information terror.” Yeltsin’s head of the Federal Information Center warned that the Parliament should be watched for its “threats to the mass media.” Any attempt to restrict the freedom of speech would be interpreted as “acts of revenge.” After the referendum, the hostility between Parliament and the President concerning the machinery of media regulation became intense, ugly, and censorious. Evolving models for the relationship between the media and the state were cumbersome and interventionist, with both sides advocating their control, their supervision, almost always in the name of conserving freedom. Indeed, the crisis over regulation radio and television was one of the most marked aspects of the dispute between the Parliament and the President. On April 29, the Supreme Soviet purged its committee on mass media at the request of its chairman, Vladimir Lisin, an action characterized as “a sign of the Parliament’s attempt to smother the democrats’ influence over the mass media committee.” Though the order was probably not enforced, it is noteworthy that members of the Russian Parliament, according to a May 5 UPI report, “long concerned about what they see as biased news coverage, barred leading news agencies from reporting on the body’s presidium.” On May 12, Pravda reported, Lisin argued that the abolished committee was ineffective because a third of its members worked within presidential structures (i.e. were Yeltsin supporters). On 21 May, Deputy Viktor Beketov was made chair of the subcommittee for communications. He called for an inquiry by an anti-corruption committee into the activities of Mikhail Poltoranin. Mikhail Astafyev, a deputy and leader of the Russian Unity faction, said that “we can see the executive power appoint leaders, merge and expand television and radio broadcasting companies, making people fully dependent on its arbitrary rule, but any attempt to introduce control by the representative power is labelled an attempt to impose censorship.” During this period, the Constitutional Court, suspended in early October, was an important element in defining freedom of the press. Prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union, Izvestia had been the paper of the Supreme Soviet. When the USSR was disestablished, the question arose as to the succession in ownership (or foundership) of the newspaper—and its not inconsiderable assets. The question was whether the journalists or the Russian Parliament became the new owners. The Court held, in an important decision, in favor of the journalists, at least as to the newspaper itself. The Constitutional Court was also asked, by Yeltsin’s Minister of Press and Information Mikhail Fedotov (together with pro-Yeltsin deputies), to consider the constitutionality of the Supreme Soviet’s decree of March 29, 1993, “Measures to Provide Freedom of Speech at Government Television, Radio and Information Services.” The decree ordered the abolition of the Federal Information Center and established supervisory councils. In his arguments to the Court on May 21, 1993 attacking the Supervisory Councils, Fedotov contrasted them to the “boards of guardians” established under presidential decree. “You know,” Fedotov said, the “decree . . . envisages the creation of boards of guardians, but they are created at the proposal of the state television and radio companies’ journalist collectives themselves. The Congress order talks about observation councils which are created by the representative bodies themselves. If both these acts are implemented then television will end up in a very difficult situation.” On May 27, the Constitutional Court upheld the power of the Parliament to establish supervisory councils over the two main television channels. The principle of Parliamentary control was validated, though the means used in the decree were held to be flawed. The judges also concluded that the creation by Yeltsin of a Federal Information Center was illegal. Mikhail Poltoranin, head of the Center, called the ruling “a political act which carries no juridical weight.” In early June, the government announced plans to redesign the Federal Information Center as an information corporation with the following tasks: preservation of Russia’s information space; formation of the economic foundations for the freedom of expression, rendering the mass media organizations freer of the state. The idea was that the Press Ministry would concern itself with the printed press, and the FIC or its successor would oversee radio and television. In July, after the decision of the Constitutional Court, Parliament established strengthened supervisory councils that were to take office by mid-August. Oleg Poptsov, chairman of the All-Russian TV and Radio Company spoke, at a press conference, of the “extraordinary hostility of the committee on mass media toward the mass media.” On August 21, Mikhail Fedotov resigned as Minister of Press and Information, after failure of the President’s amendments to the mass media law in the Parliament. Before his resignation, he condemned the observation councils that, he claimed, had already been set up and started to operate throughout the regions. “They are already dividing up air time. They are deciding who is to be shown and who isn’t. Lists of desirable and undesirable speakers are being compiled. . . . The whole purpose of the game is to call freedom censorship and censorship freedom.” He predicted that there would be acts of civil disobedience by broadcasters and journalists, but that he would not cooperate with such acts. |
Last Updated: 11/20/99 |
|
© 1999 Post-Soviet Media Law &
Policy Newsletter |
